Fork

I want to hike so bad it hurts. I’m scared to jump into the unknown. Scared to give up on a job I adore. Scared to let go of the security of a career at a company that not only cares for me as an employee but values me as a human. But no matter what I do or which way I spin it, I can’t shake the feeling that if I don’t take this leap, it will be my life’s greatest regret.

I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever wanted and more. I have career I love and enjoy. An incredible apartment. A great roommate. A man I adore who adores me. Amazing friends. Radical family. An awesome cat. And really really good beer. But still, I want the trail.

This is my fork, my moment to choose between two separate life paths. One leads to a fulfilling career, great coworkers, job stability, healthcare, a 401k, financial stability, a husband, marriage, kids, a white picket fence, the whole shebang. Truly the American dream in every sense. Everything I’ve ever told myself I wanted.

The other path is full of uncertainty. It brims over with elements outside of my control. The potential to destroy me mentally, physically, and emotionally ten times over. This path is full of rattlesnakes, bears, and marmots. It is edged with ice axes, microspikes, unpredictable weather, blistering sun, water shortages, wildfires, snowstorms, and hitchhiking.

But for some reason, I still want the latter. I want the hard. The unpredictable, the uncertain, the difficult. I want the potential for greatness that toes the line of failure.

I’ve lived my life in search of certainty and it seems that I found it. But after everything, all the work to get where I am today, I have found that I want more. I don’t want the certain. I don’t want the stable. The essence of life is keeping you on edge. So maybe in that sense, this choice is less of choosing a fork. Instead, it is repeatedly picking a knife’s edge, walking the line of serrated unease, edging on the hard and the vulnerable. It’s easy to choose the road traveled, the fork chosen by millions before. But what if instead of picking the road less traveled, I move to a different utensil completely?