As I was approaching the Upper Falls, I pondered on my business, romantic relationships, all the things I felt were a big struggle. Gosh, even writing my book has been way harder and more time-consuming than I ever imagined, yet I still showed up several hours every single day. I had zero inspiration to use AI, even though I knew it would make things way easier. I wasn’t inspired to use that tool for a reason and I had to trust that.

Just for fun, I thought to myself, What if I am being made to have the perception of working super hard and not being handed all of these things so easily because the Holy Spirit knows I wouldn’t appreciate it as much otherwise. My mind works in that way that I enjoy the challenges and hardships because it really does make me appreciate what it took to apparently get there.

Women truly do glow the most when they are in love. They have this brightness to them, this essence that is only brought out when their heart is being held tenderly.

I hold the plans I make very lightly in my mind, knowing that things can change in an instant. We never truly know which direction Spirit will take us. We are never in control of that. We just have ideas, but the script is already written and the experiences are passing through us.

I loved seeing my friends, although I definitely took it a bit personally that they didn’t invite me on the hike. As I write that, I received the message, ‘If it didn’t occur, it wasn’t meant to be.’ I received that same insight when I was on my walk earlier, momentarily getting nervous about how I’d be getting to Africa, and then this calmness came over me, reminding me not to worry because that only took me down a train of thoughts that led me know where.

I know he is just scared for my safety and doesn’t move through the world in the way that I do. I move by tuning into what feels good/following my heart and he moves through logic. But what is logic? Who is to say that logic cannot be intuition, something that cannot be seen, only felt? Maybe not even that, but an actual knowing. I know that whatever occurs is what I need.

As I fell asleep, I pondered on Orange and how he never made a move on me when he had known I was taken. It was something I never forgot and realized what a kind thing it really was. I often blamed guys for cheating, but then I thought of how I always hit on dudes that were taken, and why? It truly was not a respectful thing for me to do but I still did it. I feel like this is what this life is all about, the small insights and ‘aha’ moments. It is a slow never-ending process, only growing deeper into the understanding of Self. That is how we learn—through experience—and all of us seem to have different ones, then we teach and learn through one another.

“It has been a gift to see how much weight I put on hiking and how much I depend on that for my happiness. I don’t think I would have really paid attention to that if it weren’t for my apparent injury.”

I had my vision centered on the mountains and started having a conversation between myself and my Inner Spirit Guide that looked something like this:

Can I be okay with thru-hiking giving me the apparent effects of aging?

Inner Spirit: Yes.

If I continue to live this way, can I be okay if I never meet a man?

Inner Spirit: Yes.

I think I can be okay as long as I have the trail to hike.

Inner Spirit: And what if you lose your legs?

At least I can still look at the mountains.

Inner Spirit: And what if you lose sight?

At least I will know what it feels like in my heart.

It was an interesting play on my mind to see how easy it can be to idolize people and places in the world, even your own sense of self. But what would happen if that were to all be ripped out from under you?

Is this the trade-off? Having what feels like an awesome job but having to deal with coworkers who seem to hate me?

I walked all the way to the meadow and saw a faint game trail that led to the river. I walked through the brush, letting my leg hair soak up the water and clean off the mud. When I arrived, I placed my toes at the edge of the river. I stared at the glacial colored water and nearly forded it, my curiosity getting the best of me. I settled on eating a pb&j and enjoying the view.

“She had dementia and passed away about a year and a half ago. It broke my heart to witness her slowly disappear.”

“What was it like?”

She took a deep breath. “The way that children and adults gather information as they grow up, it’s just the opposite of what happened with her within a short span of eight months.”

“Did you feel sad?” I asked.

“I wasn’t there for it,” Derora said, “but Toria was. Her sister had a moment of acknowledgement in her eyes. Even she knew she was slowly disappearing.”

Right then, I noticed the gift of my two roommates acting seemingly afraid/uncomfortable around me. I felt that, maybe part of all this rejection I’m experiencing is to be taking these feelings and thoughts of death to God.

I wiped the tears and Rosa told me not to show anyone I’ve been crying. “Keep it professional,” she said. “Keep on keeping on.”

“My eyes are bloodshot red.”

“Allergies, say you have allergies.”

These people are starting to trip me out.

Once the room filled, I stepped outside again to breathe in the fresh air. Sitting on the porch felt better for me. Plus, I could at least look at nature. Since I was a child, I would hide away from groups/parties. I was always alone, whether it would be in my room, or hanging out on the stairs watching the party from afar. I think people kept associating it as a problem, but to me, it was my happy place. Going into myself was my safety zone and still is, except now I have an awareness that it is not a lonely thing because God is with me.

He joked, “So you got in trouble for not wearing a bra, huh?”

My nips were growing hard. I sure hoped he was visualizing my naked breasts. I visualized him confessing all the dirty things he wanted to do to me and all of the ways he was taking advantage of me in his own personal thoughts.

The cascading water was tucked between the pine trees but too distant to touch. I soaked up the scene and pondered if anyone had hiked the mountains in the backdrop beyond it. The overlook was deemed perfect for meditating on my ACIM lessons, along with prayer/contemplation of life and philosophizing. God, my philosophy teacher from college would love me now, rather than the dumb blonde bimbo chick I was making myself out to be back then. I remember coming into that classroom with my high heels clacking, rolling my eyes, giving inclination that another hour of my life was about to be wasted. Now look at me. Philosophizing my life away.

“In Portugal, they are still so old school. People walk everywhere, lots of things are written rather than uploaded on a computer. Nobody there gives a shit about what you do or what you look like,” she said. “I miss my home. I’m over the American culture.”

“Jayson, you own this top of the line lodge, can I ask how you keep yourself so composed?” I was looking for advice that I could apply to my own business. I noticed I had a short temper when it came to having employees and I wanted to work on that.

As if waiting for this question all his life, he dropped what he was doing, then walked up to me and said, “Easy. I just think of my most traumatic life experiences, then I take the situation I find so difficult right now and compare it to that moment. Then I realize everything else is so minuscule in comparison. I realize I can handle it—no problem. Someone doesn’t like the way their steak was cooked or doesn’t like the way something was served? That’s really no big deal in comparison to the traumas I had.”

From what I’ve gathered about the personality types here, I noticed it would be best to keep my mouth shut about who I am. I have been much more discreet about my life and by discreet I mean I don’t tell anyone jack shit about anything. Everyone here is either Mormon or Christian, the type of religious folk that would cringe at the mere use of a curse word.

“I'm in looove!” she said as she twirled and collapsed onto her bed all starry eyed.

She was only 20 and I found myself experiencing a sense of jealousy, wishing I could be that naïve again. I hoped it would never hit her the way it did me. I prayed she wouldn’t be fooled in the ways I had been. I, too, once had the same naivety. Now I’m just jaded and skeptical of anyone who tries to come close. All it takes is one man a girl is in love with to betray them for that lightness to begin flickering unsteadily, going out from the slightest blow.

I ended up accidentally locking my knee a bit too hard at one point, getting a little bit ahead of myself. Then, I tripped and bent my trekking pole to a 45° angle. A few seconds after that, I slipped on a wet log and fell into a pile of mud. As I was falling, I kicked the mud into the air. When I gasped, a chunk landed directly into my mouth. The views were superb, though.

“You have a room?”

He took a breath. I could feel I was catching him off guard. “Yes… I do,” he breathed.

“Can I come over?”

“Yeah,” he said, “just let me shower and clean up a bit.”

“Can you actually not shower?” I asked. Once again, he looked at me in disbelief. There was a long pause. “So, lead the way,” I said, deciding for him.

“It sounds like you’re a very healthy person,” I said. “It’s a good quality to have, to be able to feel things for people in that way. What I do, when I leave and run away after I have sex, it’s just a defense mechanism so as not to get hurt. It really was never something meant to be praised.”

With where I’m at now in my life, it is clear to me that we are only given what we can handle. No specific illusion is greater than another. One person’s ‘problems’ are not less or more valid than another’s. Make it all the same. I’ve had so many experiences of being apparently raped/molested/abused that it’s really not a big deal to me. It’s also not interpreted in a way that’s serious to me because I know that person or event is coming out of my own mind. I believed thoughts of unworthiness and so the world gave evidence that what I believed was true.

We talked for the better part of an hour. I listened to him express his fondness for meditation and the way he’s learning how to balance his work life with his happiness. It seems younger people have been catching on to how fucked up the system is and the absurdity of having to work tirelessly just to experience the bare minimum in this world. We had a good energy exchange together. I appreciated that he wasn’t pushy with me. I just listened. We were both tired, so there was this softness between us two strangers. His name was River.

When we arrived, he turned off the gas so we wouldn’t make too many waves and could listen in on the action underneath the water’s surface. We were surrounded by deep blue turquoise and teal ripples. Fog was melting away and revealing snow-covered mountains with evergreen pine trees dispersed throughout the rocky terrain. Sea lions, otters and birds all danced around us simultaneously. Everything about it felt like Heaven. In that moment, I fell into a deep love with the ocean.

He lifted me off the blueprints, then held the end of my toga sheet and used it as a leash to walk me through the hallway in near pitch black darkness. I followed him up the stairs into another hallway. I barely knew this man, but I wasn’t scared, not even in the slightest bit. If anything, I found comfort in strange men that offered the perception of possible danger. As he led me through the corridor of the new employee housing, he playfully showed me where and how he would fuck me in each place, on each box, over each table.

“Maybe I am never going to meet him,” I said. “Maybe I’m not meant to fall in love. Maybe I’m here to travel and meet others, to write about their love stories while I remain alone and elusive.”

I pulled out various pictures of my favorite hand pics I took of different lovers throughout the years. Only a special few made it to my album. Dax starts talking about how his hands got covered in oil when he was working with mechanical equipment.

“That’s so hot,” I said.

Dots goes, “Like, what is it about that? Do you like when they touch you–“ *motions hand up her arm*

I cut her off and said, “Oh yeah, I love getting fingered with men’s hands covered in filth like that.”

He gave me a sob story of how his parents were druggies and alcoholics and how no one loved him, so he had to work his way up to the top and figure his shit out. It reminded me of V and how he used the same spiel when I first met him. The way he used his ‘sad story’ to get me to empathize and play the savior role in his life. Eventually, I felt safe enough to share my vulnerabilities with him, only to have it all be used against me until my sense of livelihood/worth depended only on his word. At least I could thank him for apparently putting me through all of which he did so that now I could spot this bullshit from a mile away.

My legs were slightly spread apart and I was getting off on my own scent. Several seconds later, I was startled by someone’s hand gripping my neck tightly. I moaned as I pushed my ass into whoever it was. I was picturing it being Zane as I had been so lost in sexual fantasy that I wasn’t seeing images in front of me clearly. My fantasies were so intense that it often felt like an acid trip. Images in front of me would morph and change into whatever scene was occurring in my mind. The unknown man’s hand slid over my pussy. My eyes closed, I leaned my head back onto his shoulder. I turned around and opened my eyes.

All of a sudden, I felt a sense of overwhelm being in that scene. Sensory overload was kicking in quicker the older I seemed to get. I had a deep desire to go walk off alone somewhere. Georgina, tuning into my energy, asked if I wanted to go on a drive.
“Yes!” I exclaimed.
We ditched our gang of ‘kids’ at the field, figuring we wouldn’t be gone for long. Then, we hopped in the van and cruised down some unknown dirt roads. My energy whispered, Thank you, thank you, thank you, over and over again as I reminisced of all the bumpy dirt roads I traversed.

I would give off a strong energy of naivety, making them second guess if I was even sexualizing them in the first place. I shifted between many different images and energies, confusing them and twisting up their reality until they were vulnerable and lacking understanding of what was happening—that was the moment I would bite, poisoning them with the slow release of my venom.

He gave me a sharp look, so I quickly took my hand off my pussy.
Darianna came around the corner. “Oh! I didn’t see you there. I was wondering who he was talking to.”
My face blushed red as more people circled in.
Kaden looked at the dining napkins that were in the dryer. “Done yet?” he asked.
“Me? No. The napkins, yes.”
With a few people in the room now, conversing on their own accord, Kaden casually talked to me within the mix of their voices. “I know you’re not done yet, but don’t worry, we’ll work on that later. Just remember, I’m your boss now.”

Behind the screen, I recognize I am the one that is actively walking into the flames of the fire that I built, planning my own death and acting as if it wasn’t all of my own accord.

When I sat down in the EDR for dinner, there was a really tall, lean black guy that came into my vision. I had an energetic pull towards him, and my nipples did, too. Just looking at him, I could tell he would fuck me good. He had this ‘I don’t give a shit’ demeanor which I knew would translate well in the bedroom. I studied his movements… the way he reluctantly moved around the room, grabbing utensils and napkins for the meal he was about to eat—wish it could be me. He filled up a glass of water, then just before he sat down, he made eye contact with me. His eyes were seductively dead yet weaponizing. The glance was no more than a millisecond, if that, but what the eyes revealed never lied—the same pain that was in him was in me. To the others in the room, it was as if he was completely unfazed by my presence and barely even acknowledged me. To me, I knew he was my kind—a manipulator who was lustful and unreachable.

All this talk of hiking, and all these mountains surrounding me, made it feel like it was slowly tearing my heart open. The temptation was getting the best of me. Soon I would be on trail again, however in this chapter of my life, patience was being asked of me.

I’m on my way to Alaska! I hoped there would be a hot guy sitting next to me on the plane so I could give him a hand job like I did the last one on my way to Hawaii. Unfortunately, it’s a chick. Still, I dream…
It feels as if I’m on my way to go thru-hiking since I packed all of my backpacking gear. Instead, I’m going to be working for a few months at Glacier Bay Lodge. My friend, Axle, was the one who inspired me to get out here, offering me to apply for a job through Aramark. It was a big ‘YES’ in my energy field, especially since a group of hikers would be there. I got straight to logistics and half-assed preparation for my adventure.

Today was a very simple trek to Rabbit Lake. It was perfect for my last day in Alaska. The view appeared as though God made a black and white pencil drawing of the mountains and lake. No detail went unnoticed. Perfect placement of shading, vibrancy and depth.

Today was an overcast day, yet we still felt inspired to make a climb up Rainbow Peak. Probably not the best decision, but we still had a great time! Everything was going pretty well until we noticed the path disappeared. I was told there was an earthquake that took it out a few years ago. There were boulders and fallen rocks that had obstructed where the path used to be. It looked as though people made a path straight up to the top. We were about a quarter mile away from the summit, but decided to call it since it looked really sketchy. It was a good call because as we were making it...

Peak 3 was a lot harder than we both expected, at least at the time of year we decided to hike it. We made our own path uphill, making our way through the valley. I found a pair of micro-spikes directly on the “path”, at the time where it was just about to get challenging. This was what I meant by I felt protected by Spirit. Things like that would just appear out of thin air. I would’ve been completely screwed without the micro-spikes. As we were making our climb, the wind was fierce and I felt an adrenaline rush surging through my body. Everything went still. All I could hear was my...

Went to Point Woronzoff with a family friend. Then, I went to Arctic Valley and had so much fun playing in the snow! I felt like I healed through the trauma I experienced on the PCT in the Sierra and I was able to be light about the perception of snow again. I didn’t want today to end, not after I saw the freshly-covered-in-snow mountain peaks surrounding me.

Lisa took me hiking up O’Malley. She was a trooper! It was so cold and so windy that I felt the wind would just lift me away. I asked her if we could turn around after we got a view of the summit because I was chilled to the bone, despite hiking uphill.

Fall had approached in Alaska. The leaves glowed golden and the air was crisp. Even the way the sun shone upon the water had an autumn sense to it. The climb was difficult, as most of the trails seemed to be in Alaska. We walked through the clouds. The mountains always had a way of making us feel tiny. On our way down, our footsteps crunched the fallen leaves.

Lisa took me up McHugh Peak via the Bear Valley Trail. I let her lead the way. We came upon frost quite quickly. Near the top, we met a couple who asked us to help them find the summit. It was foggy which made it challenging to see the trail, let alone find it. We walked with them to the top and saw just the most breathtaking view. It was as though the Universe made a picture frame out of the clouds with the view of the mountain ranges, just for us.

Met up with my friend, Chris. He picked me up on the Oregon Coast Trail last year when I was walking the highway in the rain. I wasn’t hitchhiking, he just happened to stop on the side of the road to get an idea of when his friends would be passing through on their bikes. We got to talking and he said he could give me a lift out of the cold rain. He strapped my bag to his bike and drove us to Safeway where I bought us some lemon poppyseed muffins. This year, we happened to be in Alaska at the same time so he picked me up and took us hiking up Flattop! I couldn’t comprehend how people...

After the rain had passed, my little brother (Matas) and I decided to hike up Mount Marathon. About half a mile in, we met a cutie named Cody. He was wearing jeans, carried only a water bottle and felt undecided about continuing on due to the cloud coverage. But, as soon as Matas and I decided to push forward, he followed. It felt so good to be able breathe up the climb, compared to the lack of oxygen in Colorado. Matas was testing my patience on the trek. Every 500’, he was playing the, “Are we there yet” game. I kept thinking to myself, This is confirmation not to have kids. We waited...

Today, I spent time with my little brother and we went on a mini expedition. We hiked Exit Glacier and he used my trekking poles so he could get a taste of what it felt like to be a thru-hiker. He ended up falling numerous times. Afterwards, we stopped on the side of the HWY to take in the scenic view of the clouds merging between the emerald green pine trees. Something about that image could get me to stop any racing thoughts I was having and bring me into the present moment. The nighttime stars had the same humbling effect on...

Today, I drove out to Alyeska and hiked the North Ridge Trail. It switchbacked underneath the tram, went up the Stairway to Heaven and ended at the restaurant. I found a spot at the top that overlooked the town and settled myself into the dirt. With the sound of the wind as my muse, I went into a state of meditation. I realized how much I have emotionally grown in the last 6 months. I felt proud that I learned to speak up for my boundaries, even if it appeared crazy to those around me. I remembered that I was only talking to myself, therefore there was no one to impress, satisfy or even...

We visited the Snow Plow Train and walked along the railroad. Afterwards, we went to Potter Marsh and sauntered down the boardwalk. It was perfect for wildlife viewing. We watched the fish swim upstream, the ducks fluttering their wings and a swan in the distance. We even saw dragonflies making love on the handrails!

My Dad generously bought me a plane ticket to Alaska as a belated birthday present. He knew I had never been and that I would inevitably fall in love with the mountains. He was right. When I arrived, I got hosted by a couple of his friends. They drove me through the city of Anchorage and I fell in awe of the mountain ranges that circled the city. The overcast clouds teased a sense of adventure behind their density. We stopped to get crepes at the Alaska Crepery and afterwards, we visited my Dad’s office. I sat in a cubicle I once worked in for years and realized how proud I was for...