As I rode my borrowed bike the 41 miles from Abercrombie, North Dakota into Fergus Falls, Minnesota, I found myself singing. One of the songs I sang over and over was “Happiness runs in a circular motion…” I realized that for much of this hike, I hadn’t been able to sing because it took too much energy to walk in the level of pain I was in. I knew I had been walking in pain, but it wasn’t until the degree of pain was lessened quite a bit that I realized how much I had accepted, beginning from the day when my foot was first burned. I had forgotten I could be more pain-free. In fact, I had forgotten what it felt like to not think about pain all the time. This realization shocked me.

It made me think about the frog in the boiling water. The saying states that a frog put into boiling water will immediately jump out, but if it is put into tepid water that gets slowly heated to boiling, the frog will remain and be boiled to death.

I thought of how often I’ve accepted some unpleasantry and then let that build and build and build until all of a sudden I was in boiling water. As I pedaled along feeling happy, I thought of how important little breaks in our life are to help us recenter. It was only by getting some distance from the intense pain that I was able to even realize how bad it had been. I had been accepting that level of pain as the norm just as I had accepted a high level of pain as normal growing up in an abusive childhood. I didn’t know there was something different and that I could put those painful burdens down. I resolved that from here on out it would be different.

Even though my butt’s been sore from riding and it’s still quite hot, I’m so grateful for the reprieve biking these road miles has given me. This reprieve was made even better through the kindness of Trail Angel Michelle Olsen and her husband, Dave.

Michelle picked me up in Fergus Falls with a bike rack on her car and drove me about an hour to their farm where I spent the night. The following day, Dave drove me back with the bike. We left the bike in a cemetery at the end of about a 10 miles loop of trail that goes around Fergus Falls. Then Dave drove me to the beginning of that loop, where Michelle had picked me up the night before.

I walked that loop, picked up the bike and rode 16 miles north to Maplewood State Park. There I met a small section of trail that I was able to push my bike through before coming out on the other side onto a lovely paved bike path.

Michelle and Dave picked me up along the bike path and treated me to a delicious taco dinner at a local restaurant on one of Minnesota’s large lakes. After another of Dave’s delicious cooked breakfast, Michelle took me back to where they had picked me up the night before. She drove twenty-some miles north and waited for me in a park in Frazee because we were now well more than an hour drive from her house. When I got to the park, I put my bike on her car and hiked the section of trail that goes through the park, past a famous troll. There are a number of these large trolls in this area made by Thomas Dambo, a well-known environmental artist, out of recycled materials. After getting to the troll, I kept going along the North Country Trail, which soon disappeared with absolutely no markers and no sign of tread. I was walking through a field of thistles before emerging into a patch of poison ivy. Luckily, Michelle was waiting for me by the road and warned me about the poison ivy before I got to it so I was able to mostly step around it.

From there, I walked down the gravel road to the paved road, which I’ll get on with my bike to complete the 10 miles north to where Jan and Jim will meet me with my pack. They’ll pick up the bike and I’ll have a hike 6 mile hike in to a waterless campsite. I want to make it there because after that I enter an area in which camping is not allowed for 13 miles. There will be a few days of limited choices for camp spots before I enter a longer section of trail, where finding camping spots will be easier.

I have about 200 miles of trail coming up with no real town. Luckily there’s a Trail Angel named Ellen who has been holding a box for me. She’ll drive from her house to a road that the trail intersects about midway through that 200 mile section. I’ll resupply there and then head into Grand Rapids, Minnesota where another Trail Angel, Mishell, will be waiting for me.

I know that life always comes with easier and harder times, but I want to get better at recognizing the places where I can make choices to make my life more enjoyable. I want to choose happiness, even if it means putting my goal of hiking aside for a while. I keep reminding myself there’s no shame in that. I don’t have to worry about failing or what other people might think. Of course these thoughts enter my mind, but luckily, for the most part, learning to embrace Mary Badass has helped me know I can dismiss all of those thoughts and really embrace for myself the happiness I felt on the bike. My hope for all of you who have taken the time to read my post is that you can recognize the places where you’ve been sitting in water that’s getting hotter and hotter and that you can find within you what it takes to jump out of that heated water into a place of more joy.

#healingtrauma #dissociation #did #kindness #ptsd #posttraumaticstress #thruhiking #thruhike #nationalscenictrail #ncnst #northcountrytrail #themarybadass