What Twenty-Five Years Teaches You

We were supposed to be in Southeastern Oregon. That was the plan, anyway. Then the fires started, and the plan changed. So we pointed the truck north instead, toward a place Thom and I hadn't been in twenty-five years: Vancouver Island.

Back then we just took off. No reservations, adventure in our souls, wandering until we found a hotel for the night. This time we had the truck outfitted for camping, a pop-up tent on the roof, and the same figure-it-out-as-we-go attitude.

We got in line for the ferry with no reservation and somehow got the very last spot.

What we found on the other side wasn't quite the island we remembered. Victoria, the capital and beautiful "garden city," was not the same. Traffic was busy and slowed us down just to get out of town. Every campsite was full. Every hotel too. Twenty-five years ago you could just show up somewhere and get a room. Not anymore.

We got lucky the first night, a brand-new wilderness campsite we found by accident, driving past at just the right moment. Beautiful. Also apparently home to two or three black bears who like to hang around. We didn't see any, but I spent our one night there listening a little too closely to every sound in the trees. We only stayed that one night. After that, a B&B, a hotel, whatever we could find last minute. I also discovered I've gone soft. Twenty-five years of California weather will do that to a person. This was summer and it was chilly. 

None of that is really what I want to tell you about, though.

The bridge

There's a suspension bridge at Elk Falls, about a hundred feet across, swinging gently over the water below. I've been afraid of heights for as long as I can remember, and about halfway across, my body wanted to get down on its hands and knees and crawl the rest of the way.

My mind went straight to the what-ifs. What if the cable snaps? What if there's an earthquake right now? None of it was likely, of course... just my irrational mind trying to take over. I just had to breathe and self-manage the crazy thoughts. 

I know this pattern. It's the same one I sit with clients about every week. The what-ifs grab hold, and the only way through them is to ask a different question. So I did what I always tell other people to do: what if the bridge doesn't fall down?  What if I make it across just fine?

I kept my eyes straight ahead, not down, and I kept walking. And I made it. Thom filmed me coming back across, and I used every ounce of courage I had not to look down that second time either.

I was proud of myself. Not because the bridge was actually dangerous. Because I overrode the fear instead of letting the fear override me. That's the whole game, isn't it? Not eliminating the what-ifs. Just refusing to let them drive.

 Botanical Beach

We hiked down to Botanical Beach after that, and it might be the best reset I've had all year. Tide pools, steep flat rocks, the ocean stretched out in front of us, the sky doing something perfect overhead. I didn't think about anything. I just watched the water.

The old growth

Later we walked through old growth forest, some trees four hundred years old, some closer to a thousand in other parts of the island. I stopped to lean against a few of them, looking up at western red cedar, Douglas fir, western hemlock, trying to imagine what they'd seen in all that time.

They don't overthink anything. That's what struck me, standing there. They're rooted deep. They bend when they have to. But I don't think they spend a single moment doubting what they can withstand.

I found myself wondering how much longer forests like this one get to exist the way they are right now. We passed heaps of active logging on the way in, more than I've ever seen in one place, right alongside untouched groves that have stood since long before either of our countries existed. 

It's a strange thing, to stand next to something a thousand years old and wonder what it will look like in twenty-five more. Whether the fires that rerouted our whole trip will be closer next time. Whether pristine is a word we'll still get to use for places like this one, or whether it's already something we're just remembering.

I don't have a tidy answer for that. I just know I'm glad we saw it while we could.

The Canadians

One thing hasn't changed at all: the niceness, the kindness. A couple pulled up next to us while we were clearly lost looking for a beach, and instead of just pointing us in a direction, they said "follow us," and led us through private property to a gorgeous, nearly empty beach.

Given everything going on between our two countries right now, I half expected a little coolness toward Americans. I got the opposite. I apologized more than once for our president, and more than one person told me they felt sorry for us, not the other way around. It said something about the difference between how countries treat each other and how people actually do treat each other, given half a chance.

Twenty-five years ago I stood in some of these same places, and I don't think I trusted myself the way I do now. I still have what-if moments, plenty of them, apparently including on suspension bridges. But I don't stay stuck there the way I used to.

Over to you

What's a moment recently where you overrode your own what-ifs instead of the other way around?

I'd love to hear it. And if you're curious what your pattern looks like when the what-ifs show up, check out my sedond guessing quiz...it's a good place to start.