Let’s take a little walk.
THE PLAN 📝
A few years ago, I found myself settling into life in Denver, Colorado.
I had recently finished hiking the Pacific Crest Trail for the third time, and for once, I wasn’t immediately looking toward another long trail.
I was building something different.
I had found an online community that I enjoyed being part of.
I had developed a budding relationship with rock climbing.
I had favorite places around the city.
There was a business I was preparing to start.
And, of course, there was a little indentured-slavery situation helping me connect the financial dots while everything else came together.
I was settling in.
I could see the beginnings of a life taking shape around me.
There was direction.
There was momentum.
There was a plan.
Actually…
I HAD PLANS.
Then one morning, I woke up.
And as clearly as I could hear anything within myself, I heard:
It’s time to hike the CDT.
The Continental Divide Trail.
Now, this wasn’t some completely foreign idea.
I had wanted to hike the CDT ever since I first learned about it.
But there is a considerable difference between:
“I would love to hike that trail someday.”
and
It’s time.
Because…
I HAD PLANS.
And I struggled with that for about half a day.
Not because I didn’t want to hike the CDT.
I did.
Not because I didn’t recognize the guidance.
I did.
I struggled because following it meant releasing the version of what came next that I had already begun building.
So naturally, my mind did what minds do remarkably well.
It began planning around the guidance.
Fine.
I’ll hike the CDT.
I knew that hikers traveled the trail in both directions, so I figured I would begin in Montana and hike south toward New Mexico.
A summer start.
That could work.
I already had some friends who were planning to start that year and in that direction.
I could continue with my plans in Denver for a while, prepare for the trail, and then head north when the time came.
Look at that.
Guidance received.
Life plan preserved.
Everybody wins.
Except…
No.
Cancel that.
Start in the south.
Hike north.
Well.
That changed things.
A northbound journey meant beginning in New Mexico.
In the spring.
Soon.
Much sooner than the version my thinking mind had conveniently constructed.
There are moments when trusting your intuition feels wonderfully affirming.
Everything lines up.
The choice makes sense.
The timing makes sense.
You receive the nudge and think:
“Of course.”
And then there are moments when intuition looks at the beautifully organized collection of plans you have carefully arranged in front of you and says:
Well, isn’t that cute.
Let’s go this way, instead.
Toward what?
You’ll see.
How is this going to even work?
You’ll see.
What about all of my plans?
You’ll see.
Wonderful. 🙄
Alrighty then.
We’re hiking north.
◦
And once I made that decision, I did what any reasonable person preparing to walk from the Mexican border toward Canada would do.
I started researching where the trail actually began.
Eventually I discovered that the southern terminus of the Continental Divide Trail sat near the border of Mexico in a remote part of New Mexico.
The closest town I could reasonably reach through general transportation was Lordsburg.
Great.
I could get to Lordsburg.
One problem.
Lordsburg was not the terminus.
So I asked the question that seemed fairly important at the time:
How am I going to get from Lordsburg to the southern terminus?
The response came:
You will know everything that you need to know when you need to know it.
…
HUH?
I was preparing to begin a journey of thousands of miles.
I didn’t even know how I was getting to mile zero.
And apparently the itinerary was:
You’ll know when you need to.
IF YOU’RE FEELING FROGGY…🐸
This is where trust begins asking something different of us.
It is one thing to recognize intuition.
It is another to listen to it.
It is another still to follow it when following it makes sense.
But eventually, there may come a moment when the relationship asks you to move without the comfort of knowing where the next step will land.
A leap of faith.
Not because you know exactly what will happen.
If you did, there wouldn’t be much of a leap.
Not because you have been guaranteed the outcome you prefer.
But because somewhere beneath everything you do not know…
there is something you trust.
◦
So I did not know how I was getting to the southern terminus.
I knew only what I needed to know in that moment.
Prepare to say goodbye to the life I was creating,
Prepare my gear for long distance hiking.
Get to Lordsburg, NM.
The rest?
Apparently…
I would know when I needed to know it.
Continuing the walk.
I began preparing to say goodbye to the life I had been creating.
And I do mean goodbye.
When I told my place of indentured servitude that I was leaving to hike the Continental Divide Trail, they informed me that I would have to quit.
Which I found mildly amusing.
It was an outdoor gear store.
Apparently, using the gear was where they drew the line.
I started preparing for the trail.
I ordered a new sleeping bag.
Shoes.
Clothes.
An ice axe.
I calculated how much water I might need to carry through some of the longer dry stretches and made sure I had enough capacity: four one-liter bottles and a two-liter bladder.
Six liters.
Because apparently we were going for a little walk through the desert.
I purchased and downloaded maps from an app I trusted so I would have access to GPS navigation offline.
I gathered the gear I already owned.
I retrieved what I had stored in California.
Little by little, the life I had been planning for was being replaced by preparation for a journey I had not been planning to take.
And when my job asked when I might return?
I didn’t know.
When I tuned in and asked Source about it, what I received was simple:
Say goodbye.
Not see you later.
Goodbye.
I didn’t feel any energy around returning.
So I didn’t give them a return date.
I booked a flight to California, where I could gather the rest of my gear, and from there I would take a bus to Lordsburg, New Mexico.
I chose 3/21 as my start date.
It was still late January when all of this began.
Denver was in winter.
I loved the snowstorms that would roll through the city, cover everything, and then seemingly disappear within a couple of days.
And somewhere between those storms and March 21st, I spent nearly two months riding what I can only describe as a self-induced panic roller coaster.
When I rested in the knowing that I would know everything I needed to know when I needed to know it…
I was cool.
Everything was fine.
I trusted.
And then my mind would wander a little too far into the future.
But how are we getting to the terminus?
And around the roller coaster we went again.
Weeeeeee🎢
I researched.
I looked at different possibilities.
I even discovered that I could schedule a shuttle from Lordsburg to the southern terminus.
Surely that was the answer.
But every time I spiraled far enough into needing to know and turned toward Source again with the same question…
How am I going to get to the terminus?
I could almost feel the Universe lean in close enough to whisper:
You will know everything you need to know when you need to know it.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Eventually I didn’t even need to ask.
But I still did.
I knew what the answer was going to be.
Sometimes I would repeat it to myself before Source had the opportunity.
You will know everything you need to know when you need to know it.
Yes.
Thank you.
I KNOW.
But…
HOW?!
😂
I never felt frustration coming from Source, there was something else.
Compassion.
Patience.
Almost an understanding that I was learning something much larger than how to get from Lordsburg to a trailhead.
I was in the early throes of releasing my dependence on certainty.
Learning to trust an inner relationship that had already begun cultivating itself within me.
And that was messy.
I trusted.
I worried.
I trusted again.
I researched.
I surrendered.
I tried to figure everything out.
I surrendered again.
Apparently, a leap of faith can contain quite a bit of flailing on the way down.
😱
◦
And then, after what somehow felt both incredibly long and over in the blink of an eye…
I was on the bus.
My pack was with me.
My gear was ready.
I was prepared to spend the night somewhere in the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico if I needed to.
At least…
I thought I was prepared.
The closer we got to Lordsburg, the louder my uncertainty became.
I still didn’t know how I was getting to the terminus.
At one point, I found a small pocket of comfort in another plan.
Fine.
If nothing else worked, I could walk from Lordsburg toward the terminus.
Maybe walk all the way there.
Then turn around, walk back toward Lordsburg, and continue north from there.
Ridiculous?
Perhaps.
Possible?
Technically.
My mind was pleased to have something resembling a plan again.
Source?
Do not worry.
…
Easy for you to say.
Eventually, the bus rolled into Lordsburg.
LORDSBURG, NM
It was a small town.
There were motels.
Restaurants.
A grocery store.
And nearby, the interstate carried travelers east and west across New Mexico.
All perfectly useful things.
None of them were the southern terminus of the Continental Divide Trail.
As we got closer, I had continued asking the same question I had been asking for nearly two months.
How am I getting to the terminus?
And every time:
You will know everything you need to know when you need to know it.
By this point, I was exhausted by the phrase.
I was fairly certain the Universe was exhausted by the question.
The bus stopped near the Golden Arches.
I stepped off.
Pack in hand.
Lordsburg, New Mexico.
I had done it.
I had followed the guidance all the way here.
And without skipping a beat, I asked one more time:
Okay. How am I getting to the terminus?
Finally, after nearly two months, I received a different answer.
Go inside and use the bathroom.
…
What?
Not exactly the revelation I had traveled across several states to receive.
But okay.
I went inside.
I used the bathroom.
And when I came back out, another instruction arrived.
Go to the highway.
Stand near the eastbound on-ramp.
So I did.
Now my mind immediately got to work.
If I could hitch east, which exit would I need?
Which roads connected from there?
Could I stitch together several rides?
How close could someone reasonably get me?
My I need to know mind was back at the drafting table.
The guidance was considerably simpler.
Stand there.
Put your thumb out.
So I put my thumb out.
Mostly.
I wasn’t entirely sure whether hitchhiking was legal in New Mexico, and whenever a police car passed, my thumb suddenly became extremely interested in doing anything other than requesting a ride.
What? Me? Hitchhiking?
No, officer.
Just standing beside an interstate examining the atmosphere.
Nothing unusual here.
There wasn’t much traffic coming toward the on-ramp.
An SUV passed.
Kept going.
And I waited.
Not twenty minutes later, a man pulled over.
If I remember correctly, he was driving a Subaru and towing a motorcycle on a trailer.
He asked where I was going.
I told him I was only trying to get an exit or two down the highway.
He told me to get in.
So I did.
And somewhere shortly after I climbed into that vehicle, he told me where he was going.
He was hiking the Continental Divide Trail.
And right now…
he was on his way to the southern terminus.
…
◦
The southern terminus.
🤯🤯🤯
The place I had spent nearly two months worrying about how I would reach.
The place I had researched shuttles to.
The place I had considered walking to from Lordsburg and then walking all the way back.
The place Source had repeatedly refused to give me directions to.
Because I didn’t need them.
Not yet.
I only needed to get to Lordsburg.
Then I needed to get off the bus.
Then I needed to use the bathroom.
Then I needed to walk toward the highway.
Then I needed to stand beside the eastbound on-ramp.
Then I needed to put out my thumb.
And then…
I needed to get in the car.
That was all.
One piece of information.
One moment at a time.
For two months, I had wanted the Universe to tell me how the story was going to unfold.
Instead, it kept giving me what I needed to participate in its unfolding.
You will know everything you need to know when you need to know it.
It hadn’t been withholding the answer.
I had been asking for an answer that belonged to a moment I hadn’t reached yet.
By the end of that day, I had stood at the southern terminus of the Continental Divide Trail.
I took my pictures.
I looked north.
And then I began walking.
Somewhere roughly 2,600 to 3,000 miles away…
Canada.
I didn’t know everything that would happen between where I stood and where I was going.
I couldn’t.
I didn’t need to.
After all…
I had already learned how to get to mile zero.
One now at a time.
There was something else hidden inside those two months that I wouldn’t fully appreciate until later.
The difference between what I wanted to know…
and what I needed to know.
I wanted to know how I was getting to the terminus.
And to be fair, that seems like a pretty reasonable thing to want to know when you are preparing to begin a journey of several thousand miles from said terminus.
The question was relevant to the journey.
But it wasn’t yet relevant to the moment.
There is a difference.
When I was still in Denver, I didn’t need directions from Lordsburg to the southern terminus.
I needed to prepare.
I needed to get my gear together.
I needed to say goodbye.
When I was in California, I didn’t need to know who would eventually give me a ride.
I needed to get on the bus.
When I was approaching Lordsburg, my mind desperately wanted the next several steps laid out before me.
But apparently…
there was still information I didn’t need yet.
And once I arrived?
After nearly two months of asking how I was going to get to the terminus?
The first thing I needed to know was:
Go use the bathroom.
You cannot make this stuff up.
Well…
you can.
But I didn’t.
