For years, endurance was something life demanded of me.
This time, endurance will be something I choose.
2016, my children and took up residence at a local shelter for those needing to step away from domestically abusive cycles. At that point in my life, safety was not an idea or a campaign word. It was something immediate and necessary. The shelter was part of the place between what we had to leave behind, and whatever might come next.
Later, I had the opportunity to speak at a few fundraising events in support of the shelter. Standing in front of people and sharing my experience was one of the early ways I began using my own voice again. I was still close to survival then. I could speak about getting out, but I had not yet lived far enough beyond it to understand everything that reclaiming a life would mean.
Nearly a decade later, I have learned that leaving is not the final chapter. Safety matters beyond measure, but survivors also deserve time, freedom, identity, adventure, connection and joy. They deserve the opportunity to become more than the worst thing that happened to them.
The outdoors has become part of that reclamation for me. I have completed multiple three to four day backpacking trips with a full pack, including a trip on the North Country Trail near the Oren Krumm shelter. (Oren Krumm is where I FULLY fell in love with the trails and with my life.) I hike, camp, paddle and love to spend time alone in wild places.
I am continuing to build the strength and experience required
for a much longer journey through extended hikes, weight lifting and endurance training.
When the idea arrived to walk from the Minnesota-Wisconsin border across Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, it felt spiritually connected. The words that came with it were simple:
From surviving to divinely alive.
I do not want to make this hike to prove that suffering makes a person strong. Survivors should never have to turn their pain into a performance to be considered worthy. I want to walk because strength should eventually belong to the survivor herself.
Every mile would be chosen.
Every direction would be mine.
Every morning would begin with the freedom to continue.
Wisconsin is an essential part of the journey because it is where I survived and started rebuilding.
Walking across it would honor the distance already traveled. Crossing into Michigan would represent movement beyond the familiar story of survival and toward a life shaped by possibility.
I hope this journey can raise meaningful support for people who still need a safe place to land. I also hope it can offer another image of survivorship: not only a woman escaping danger, but a woman moving toward herself – capable, imperfect, joyful, spiritual, tired, determined and wildly alive.
