I jumped out of the passenger seat and planted my feet firmly onto the rocky parking lot at the bottom of Weir Hill. Instinctively my arms went up over my head in that cat-like hybrid yawn-stretch that is at once both relaxing and energizing. Perhaps it was the sunlight trickling through the polychromatic leaves, or the way the cool breeze mingled with the warm autumnal sun that gave me goosebumps. But despite having hiked these trails dozens of times, something felt a little different.
Weir Hill, North Andover, MA
Life certainly doesn’t look the way I thought it would at 35 years old. My concept of a familial unit has shifted drastically just this last year. I don’t have the white picket fence and 2.5 kids found in my childhood daydreams, or even the wonderful life partner that I expected to grow old with. But in that moment, at the bottom of the hill I was sucker punched with a realization: I am truly not alone.
It couldn’t have been more than a 30-second visual, flashing in my brain like one of those montages from a Lifetime movie, and it didn’t manifest as a result of flying over oceans or transecting continents. I felt content, at home. Maybe even at peace?
That week singularly I was able to celebrate a birthday with a fantastic group of women, all like sisters to me; welcome a new baby into our remarkable circle of friends; visit and have dinner with one of my oldest friends; spend quality time with an amazing partner and human; enjoy a campfire with my in-laws and “sister”; plan a trip to NOLA with my Maple girls.
None of the aforementioned are copy/paste relationships, none of them are cookie-cutter, and none of them involve that white-picket fence ideation. But each and every one of those interactions left me feeling happy and thriving, and each and every one involved people that have chosen me, and I them, to travel through this life with.
If that isn’t family, I certainly don’t know what is.
"You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you." - Frederick Buechner