My time in Alaska went quickly, as much as it didn’t. There were evenings that dragged out and were punctuated the acute loneliness I felt so that it seemed I would be there forever in the long cold dark, and now that it’s over I mostly remember the blue arctic light and sunshine and it feels like it all passed in a blink. I spent glorious days (and nights) running dogs with Jodi, scooped mountains of dog shit and dolled out gallons on gallons of cookpot and kibble, talked endlessly about checkpoints and feeding and snacking and booties and lameness and training and conditioning and routines and strategy and learned just how much it is I have to learn if I really want to do this someday. I had one of the most transcendent days of my life, running dogs for seven hours in the mountains as a full moon rose over the peaks and the northern lights danced above my team and I, alone with the scrubby northern spruce and the silver light casting their shadows across the trail. I enjoyed sinking my teeth back into EMS education, teaching basic medical and trauma assessments, traction splinting and shock management, over and over again to different groups of students, reveling in it while at the same time confirming to myself that I want something more, professionally. This confirmed that shifting from prehospital medicine into nursing is a move I am ready to sink my teeth into, as daunting as a full-time masters program feels now that it is looming over my head like a specter.
White Mountains Training Run
And it is looming close. Orientation last week ran like an upscale version of scared straight, and I have a daunting pile of reading due before my first class on Monday. But I am looking forward to the challenge – to being challenged – instead of just plowing through prerequisite material. In addition to school itself, there will be the challenge of commuting two hours north twice a week, living in the basement of a stranger’s house (with Ersta, a puzzle herself, these days) for half the week, finding and then moving into a new house somewhere in the twin cities by the summer, and keeping up with everything else in the mean time.
I know that I have a tendency to worry too much about the future. As in, constantly. I find my mind racing from the time I wake up to the time I (try) to sleep with plans, contingencies, scenarios (usually worst-case,) options … every moment seems spent, at times, obsessing over how things (or, on more negative days, if things) will work out. And the thing is, they always have. I firmly believe that the future is what you make of it, with your own grubby hands. That we are responsible for making our own opportunities, regardless of if that means taking the initiative to create them or working to become the person that is *capable* of taking a hold of those that present themselves seemingly by chance. Yet the constant worry is working towards neither of those ends. I need to find a way to swing back from my constant, obsessive preparation for future to live more in the moment – both to enjoy it, and to embrace and tackle the challenges each moment presents. And there will be plenty in the coming months.
In the few weeks before I left Alaska, when there was finally enough snow to run the dogs on sleds, I found myself in a familiar yet unaccustomed mental space. I had grown used to having Jodi around to chat with on our hours-long training runs in the truck, but suddenly I found myself alone on the sled again, just the dogs and the wind with me and Jodi far up ahead. I often had to force myself to stop thinking about starting graduate school in a month, or about the run planned for next week, or class the next day, or even the next worrisome corner down the trail, and remember where I was – on a sled behind good, strong happy dogs, in the mountains – exactly where I wanted to be. Given my proclivity to fret, it took some self-discipline to simply revel in that, but it was a good exercise in presence and peace – one I hope I can continue to draw on as the unknown future marches out ahead.
*Photo Credit: Jodi Bailey*
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