Day 8

Day 8. Into the woods.

Something about this time of year always reminds me of those months in the spring of '07. Maybe it's the smell of smoke rising from chimneys in the houses around ours. Or the the numbness of my fingers and toes in the cold winter snow. Or maybe it's the fact that I am currently reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

For those of you who have never heard of this book, it's about a young woman who spent a summer hiking the PCT (a trail on the west coast), healing from deep pain, and pushing herself farther than she ever thought she could go.

I have a tendency to read books like this and develop a deep desire to follow in the author's footsteps, to be an adventurer just like them. Last night as I read further into Wild (no spoilers, I'm still not finished), I felt that desire rise up in my chest. But that's where it stopped, because, you see, in many ways I have done what she did.

There used to be a show on MTV (I think) called brat camp. Messed up teens went to live in the woods for a few months to shape up instead of doing hard time. I remember seeing commercials for it on TV and wondering how anyone could do something like that, live like an animal in the middle of the woods.

Not long after, I did that. In the spring of 2007 when I was 16 years old I flew to Georgia (against my will) to go to a wilderness camp there for a few months. I wasn't going in place of Juvi, I was going in place of dying. At this point in my life everything was upside down. I wasn't eating, and spent my days skipping school, staying up all night watching crappy TV and drinking wine out of the box in our fridge. I wasn't a bad kid, but I was a mess.

When I got to the camp, I was more terrified than I ever had been before. I was wearing cargo pants granny panties, hiking boots, wool socks, a cotton sports bra, and an ugly yellow T-shirt they had given me in exchange for my own belongings. I sat on my sleeping mat by the edge of the campsite, and cried for days.

As days went by, I started to eat, and laugh, and enjoy the world around me. But it was never easy. Some mornings I would wake up with snow covering my sleeping bag. When it was too wet to make a fire, I ate cold beans out of my pack. I've never learned so much about myself, about what I'm capable of enduring.

And Jesus spoke to me in my tent. He came to me in my brokenness. He didn't bring me out of the woods, like I kept praying that we would, but he walked with me through it.

-Psalm 91:10-
For you have made the LORD, my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place. No evil will befall you, Nor will any plague come near your tent. For He will give His angels charge concerning you, To guard you in all your ways.…