Miscommunication

I can’t wait to get back into the woods.  I’m so proud of the trips I’ve made so far this past year (Olympic National Park, Mt. Rainier, Providence Canyon, Cheaha, Chattahoochie Bend, Banning Mills, McIntosh Reserve, Amicalola Falls, Appalachian Trail (7.5 miles), Fort Benning, Red Top Mountain, Sweetwater Creek, Sharp Creek State Park, John Tanner State Park, Lake Carroll, Walker Lake, etc ), and look forward to the trips coming up on my schedule (Cloudland Canyon, Stone Mountain, Grand Canyon, Badlands, Redwoods, Portland, Carlsbad Caverns, 43 more miles of the Appalachian Trail,  . I truly can’t express what being in the woods does for me. I’ve tried to explain it and my love for it, but I find most people don’t really understand what I’m saying, or just dismiss my remarks.  Do they think I just like the sound of my own voice?

Being on a dating site and meeting a bunch of new people, you’d be surprised at how little people really pay attention to what you say and how most of them don’t really know what they even want and like.  I’ve made myself as clear and as plain as I possibly can, but they still don’t listen.  THAT is now become the greatest quality I look for in a man… the ability to listen.  

The second quality is the ability to examine themselves and what they really want and know to be the truth of it. Many times we think we want something in our lives, or even in some cases what we think we don’t want in our lives, mostly because it sounds good or we are trying to protect ourselves from getting hurt.  But what we really like and what we really want … isn’t what we say or dream… but what we do.   Don’t tell me you love hiking and haven’t stepped foot in the forest in nearly a decade.  You’re lying to yourself.  You don’t love hiking, you love the idea of hiking.   

Don’t tell me you love adventure and trying something new when you’ve worked the same routine for the last decade.  You’re just bored.  If you truly loved adventure, your life would be filled with adventure.  It might not be on the scale you hoped or dreamed… but you truly are what you do – not what you think you do. We’re a bunch of liars.

I know about lying to yourself.  I’ve done it for a very long time.  It made me miserable.  I can’t and won’t do it anymore.  I’m really looking for adventure.  I’ve made so many giant leaps that I’m like Superman – able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.  I know how to fall too… but even more so – how to get back up.

I really am looking for love, not become an addition or trophy to your boring life.  I’m not boring.  I’m not compatible with boring.  I’m passionate.  I’m bold.  I’m scared shitless (whatever the fuck that means), I take risks.  If I come into your life… your life will never be boring.  

So, what am I saying?  Wake the fuck up and get real with yourselves, people.  Life is too damned short to sleep through it.  All that stuff you’re trying to accumulate because you think it will make you happy is the biggest fucking lie you tell yourself.  Happiness is a state of being.  If you’re not happy with nothing… nothing will ever make you happy.  When I die, I want my tombstone or urn to say, “She lived… she really fucking lived.”

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray