Scuffling along a poorly marked trail in the middle of the Grand Canyon, I asked myself what in the actual hell I was doing. The temperature was in the 20s that morning, so I had severely overdressed in neoprene pants, which now had a giant hole in the rear from sliding down a rockface. Under the midday sun, sweat emanated from every pore in my body. The terra cotta earth was starkly contrasted by a shock of cyan sky, and an electric blue river which lay tauntingly in the distance. My noisy footsteps sounded out of place, as if I were an intruder in an alien world. A few twittering birds were the only sign of life, aside from a multitude of unforgiving cacti. And though I never saw them, I knew that venomous rattlesnakes hid in crags of the scorched, rocky expanse, ready to strike if disturbed.

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and unlike normal people, I had decided to spend the holiday hiking the Hopi Salt Trail. Against the sage advice of everyone I knew, I had chosen to take on this notoriously difficult and remote hike alone. The deeper I moved into the belly of the canyon, the more it became apparent that I was in way over my head. My hands and feet were bloody, muscles screaming, and more than once, I questioned if I might die out there.

Though likely the most dramatic, my desert escapade was not the first time I had ventured solo into the wilderness with the romanticized idea of getting lost and finding myself. It also wasn’t my last. Following an abusive marriage and equally traumatic divorce, I found unexplainable peace and comfort in solitude and had started seeking it almost obsessively. The more time I spent alone, the more I was drawn to it. Type two fun; the kind where you feel like you’re going to die in the moment but remember the adventure fondly, had become my addiction.

The year prior to my magnificent “hell hike”, I had set off on my paddleboard for a 79-mile excursion down the Suwannee River. I slept on riverbanks, and at vacant river camps, reveling in my aloneness. I encountered almost no one and barely spoke, except to myself, for four days. The one friend I made was a blind, arthritic, half-starved and highly skittish dog trapped at the foot of a steep embankment. His shaggy black fur dripped with water, and I suspected that he had swam from the opposite shore and didn’t know how to return home. After building enough trust to share my beef jerky and give him a head pat, I paddled across the river to where there were several houses, unsuccessfully attempting to find the home he belonged to. When I returned, the dog was gone. My heart sank at the thought that he may have tried to follow me back across the river, and I cried as I paddled away. Years later, I still wonder what happened to that poor, sweet pup.

While physically taxing, the rest of my river journey was peaceful. I laid on sandy banks marveling at the stars, waded in hidden springs where tiny minnows nipped at my toes, and tried to make sense of my new life as a divorcée.  By the time I reached my van, which I had paid a local outfitter to conveniently park in Branford for me, I felt one with the river and the prospect of returning home felt foreign and frightening.

On my drive back to Panama City Beach, I watched, exasperated, as the woman in front of me threw trash out of her car window. After dutifully picking up garbage along the river, I was livid. Honking my horn, yelling and waving my arms like a wild woman, I pulled up next to her at a stoplight. The crazy, angry, swamp creature I had become was clearly terrifying, and she whipped her head away to avoid eye contact and rolled up her windows as quickly as she could. As I sat, stewing over how careless and entitled people can be, I realized that peaceful river had felt more like home than the one I was returning to.

More adventures followed, and an extended business trip in Arizona found me near the summit of Mount Baldy, where I slept clutching a can of bear spray. Strange noises from a creature I had deemed “demon dog”, had me convinced something with large, gnashing teeth was coming to eat me.

Not long after my return, I began spending every weekend possible in my own personal paradise, paddleboarding to the tip of the deserted peninsula where I ran around naked with only the seabirds to judge me. At night I would have a one-person party around my campfire, singing at the top of my lungs. It became a joke with my friends that if I ever went missing, they could find me wandering that peninsula with only war paint and a spear.

After a girls’ trip to Costa Rica, I ached to go back so badly that I quickly bought another plane ticket and went back solo. I explored waterfalls, remote beaches, enjoyed surf lessons, and made friends with a bunch of worldly 20-somethings. A Google Maps snafu took me down a washed-out road, where I cracked the radiator, doing $2,800 worth of damage to my rental car. Even in the chaos of a four-and-a-half-hour tow back to Liberia and a missed flight home, I was unrattled. I felt free.  

While these adventures gave me a kind of inner peace only solitude can, I actually do enjoy the company of others, and a few of my favorite people are crazy enough to join me in my wanderings. In 2024, one of my dear friends and I paddle-camped for several nights in the remote Ten Thousand Islands. Prior to launching, I asked the park ranger in Everglades City if it was ok to leave my car in their parking lot for a few days. She looked at me like I had six heads when she saw the paddleboards and asked if we were planning to attempt the islands on them. When I casually nodded, she said, “I don’t think anyone has ever done that before”. I assured her that we’d be fine, and that I’d seen pictures online of kayaks on the island campsites, I just needed to know if we could park in her parking lot. She just shook her head incredulously and wandered off, mumbling about the tides and currents. She wasn’t wrong, certain sections were brutal. It was also one of the most epic camping experiences of my life.

These journeys weren’t merely an adventure, but a way of finding myself again. I was pushing my limits, and the harder I pushed, the farther I wanted to go. Stepping out of the box became a drug, and I was high on freedom. I was healing.

My love for the outdoors isn’t random; it started at a young age. Growing up I frolicked in the woods, building forts and pretending I was living off the land in a post-apocalyptic world. I loved horror movies and sometimes I’d crawl, heart pounding, through a lengthy drainpipe near my home in Vermont, envisioning Pennywise lurking in the shadows. The fear fueled me. By the time I was in high school, I was convincing friends to go camping with me.

Family trips to Mexico and the Dominican Republic opened my eyes and inspired me to travel. The more I saw of the world, the more I hungered to see.  My love affair with warm weather and sunshine led me to Southern California immediately after high school, and eventually Florida.

Life found me pregnant at 21 and my focus immediately shifted from adventure to survival. My son’s father and I had a tumultuous relationship that ended when Tyler was very young. I settled, as gracefully as I could, into being a young, single mom with a special needs child. While my life became much more domesticated during that chapter, I found peace and pride in accomplishing things on my own. As my son got a little older, I began taking him camping and on tropical vacations, often just the two of us, reigniting my passion for adventure.

In my late 20s, I fell into a relationship with a dear friend for a few years.  He was magnificent with my son, and we were so comfortable in each other’s company that it seemed natural and easy. He packed his bags and moved to Florida to be with me, however I felt no fire. No passion. I guiltily admit that I broke that kind man’s heart by allowing what should have remained a friendship to become something more. That’s when I learned firsthand the distinct difference between loving someone and being IN love.

After more time alone, my then 9-year-old son approached me, offering up his allowance money if I would join a dating website. “Why would I want to do that?” I asked him. “I’m happy with our life the way it is”.

“I know mom, but I think you could be happier if you found someone” my sweet, volatile, empathic child informed me.

I had no interest in hookups or random dates, nor did I have time for them, but the idea of finding something real sounded compelling. Was it worth a try? I was skeptical, but also inspired by my son, bored and curious. I signed up for a free dating site and found that scrolling through profiles felt like shopping for a boyfriend on Amazon. After an onslaught of neanderthal “hello beautiful” messages from random dudes, I was ready to scrap the entire thing. That’s when I came across *Ben’s* profile. He had a Matthew McConaughey jawline, his introduction was well written and charming, he co-owned an organic tomato farm, and sounded intelligent, adventurous and down to earth. “What the hell?” I thought and sent him a message.

In retrospect, it’s mind-blowing how much my life changed as a result of that single, innocent note.

What started as intensity, the kind that feels like fate, slowly revealed itself as something else entirely. By the time I called my mom sobbing three weeks before getting married, I was acutely aware that things were not healthy, but I wanted so badly to be a happy family that I went through with it.

I recall, late one Christmas Eve, as we slept downstairs at Ben’s sister’s house, innocently asking him to let the dog out. The next two hours he berated me, swearing and calling me names. I tried desperately to quiet him, so as not to wake his family. I moved from the guest room to the couch in an attempt to diffuse the situation, and he followed me, yelling louder, demanding that I return to bed with him. I spent the next morning exhausted with a fake smile plastered on my face as everyone opened their gifts, knowing very well that his mom and sister had heard the entire ordeal, yet no one said a word. As usual, Ben was charming and acted like nothing was wrong, gleefully hugging everyone. Christmas was his favorite holiday, after all.

The abuse escalated and being trapped together during COVID became almost unbearable at times. A concerned friend gave me a book on boundaries that I never opened, but its title stared at me judgingly, because I clearly had none.

On a whim, I decided to slowly discontinue the antidepressants I had started taking early in our relationship, and it was like coming out of a coma. I was finally waking up, and I was pissed off! The thought of leaving sounded onerous and scary, and the idea of losing his family broke my heart, but I knew it was inevitably coming.

One fateful night I went to bed, deeply annoyed at Ben’s obnoxious, drunken behavior. I wanted to go to sleep, but he had other plans and didn’t want to take “no” for an answer. That night was the only time I was grateful he was so intoxicated. That was also the last night we shared a bed.

It’s now been 13 bafflingly messed-up years since meeting Ben, and I’ve stood on deserted beaches and in desert canyons alike, reflecting on how much of myself I lost in that relationship. After years of being a zombie, something wild and savage awakened inside of me, and it’s HUNGRY. I need adrenaline like I needed the air to breathe. Every aching muscle, every painful step I’ve taken, has both hurt and healed me. The closer to death I am, the more alive I become, and that feeling is something I will continue to chase for as long as I walk this earth. I found freedom and have fallen completely, insanely in love with it.

Maybe love isn’t reserved only for humans, but perhaps it’s the capacity to be in love with life itself. While I sit here, four years post-separation and reflect on everything that’s happened, I can honestly say that the outdoors has loved me better than any man ever could.