Menopausal Mother

I'm so excited to share an excerpt from a book by an author who prefers to remain anonymous----which is what immediately piqued my interest in reading "Everything You Ever Taught Me," written by Person Irresponsible. I am in awe of what this author did---she packed up her life and hit the road to travel through the wilderness.

 

In 2020 the world went to hell in a handbag. This isn’t exactly headline news - although it was then. I went from perfectly locatable in the Cotswolds to utterly baffled in the American wilderness when I embarked on a quest to walk from Mexico to Canada for reasons that escape me. It was most probably nothing more dramatic than a mid-life crisis.

Perhaps I should have come ‘home’ but I lived in the deluded optimism the pandemic would all be over by the summer. Besides, I’d given up my home: shoving my belongings into storage, persuaded someone to look after my cat and someone else to look after my car. I did think about returning but each time I popped into civilisation to top up my supplies, I discovered a new reason to run for the hills. So 'home' became a tent: a mere flimsy bit of fabric to protect me from every conceivable terror that exists in the wilderness - bears, rattlesnakes, deserts, avalanches and other human beings. Most dangerous of all was the racket inside my head.

Everything you ever taught me is my journey, relying on nothing other than the twelve steps of recovery, teaching me to take it one day at a time, one step at a time, and one bloody ginormous mountain at a time as I staggered my way along the Pacific Crest Trail. As mid-life crises go, I remain utterly clueless why mine took me from my sofa to the Canadian border via the fridge, powered only by two chubby legs and a fat arse.

An excerpt from Chapter 12: “There is such a thing as a dumb question!” 

I wondered if foot bones had individual names, because I couldn’t think of a single one. The agony of pressing down was causing a mild but detectable limp, which in turn bruised my hip joint, and strained my knees. Each morning descended into a ritual of asking myself what was actually working. How much did various parts of me hurt? What didn’t hurt? And why the hell was I doing this in the first place? That latter question is the most commonly asked question. “Idiocy,” had become my stock-in-trade answer. I had no idea, and I couldn’t face explaining multiple times a day how a friend had watched Wild, and then died. Not because she’d watched Wild, but because of cancer. And no, it wasn’t some carpe diem response to grief. And no, I wasn’t doing it for charity, but still after nearly two thousand, two hundred miles, it startled me that I still didn’t have a neat, plausible realisation. 

There were plenty of other questions I answered quite repetitively. “Do you carry a gun?” was one of those random and particularly daft ones to ask a thru-hiker. I imagine if we did, by Washington, day hikers would be negotiating their freedom in exchange for a half-dozen Snickers. ….

….Being asked questions was just about the only distraction most days. The views were largely irrelevant given it was thick woodland in every direction. Aside from questions from the occasional day hiker, days remained quite laborious. A plethora of garter snakes rapid-firing off the trail would give me a timely jolt of adrenaline here and there. Another day, I was mesmerized by two small, bright pink, pudgy snakes all curled up beside a rotting log. They both eyed me warily, I assumed at their most vulnerable as they had just shed their skins. Later, when I asked Google why they were so pink, I discovered it was probably because they were northern rubber boas, which explains why they didn’t shoot off, or kill me.

Author bio - Person Irresponsible*

Female. Aged 46. Average height. Large rear. Huge thighs. British in nationality. In the midst of a mid-life crisis. It probably began when I was about four. Hoping I'll overcome it one day. Can't afford a Ferrari, and I can't be bothered with an affair. I bought a quad-bike instead but then I sold that when I buggered off to America for six months to live in the wilderness.

Got into the recovery gig aged 41, almost by accident. So I'm now *that* boring divorcee, teetotaller, vegetarian and cat-owner that absolutely no one wants to invite to their dinner parties. Loves chocolate and cats. Loathes camping.  

*The author has retained her anonymity in keeping with the eleventh tradition of Alcoholic Anonymous: “we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.” 

Website 

https://www.mlconaquad.com

Links

https://www.amazon.com/Person-Irresponsible/e/B096G6C87R?ref_=dbs_p_pbk_r00_abau_000000