I’m Going Backpacking with My Daughter — that’s what I told her.

I’m not sure if I’m full of shit

I’m afraid to hope, but I need it.

I was never an avid hiker, but I loved walking through state parks with my daughter. One of my favorite things in the world is to be where there is no cell service or WIFI and trees, oceans, and tundra all around me. When she was little, we camped a few times a year, and thanks in part to the book Wild and my subsequent research, I began weaving dreams of backpacking with her once she was able and willing. And then the dream ended.

I wonder part of the reason if my daughter took up that dream is becasue she misses it. She misses having a mother looking toward the future with hope. My health is taking things away, and she feels it, too.

As I sit here, the sciatica is growing. Last week, I told the doctor that I don’t have sciatica, just intense sacral pain.

A week before that, I was standing in my kitchen pain-free, listening to the tape in my mind that I must be fine; it’s all a matter of perspective, and I just have normal aches and pains.

I know one version of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. I keep thinking I’m okay because every couple of weeks, I have a couple of hours, or even a day or two, where I feel like a normal person with normal aches and pains.

Fibromyalgia is impossible to define, and it’s even more impossible to live with. I can deal with the sources of pain that are concrete, arthritis in the feet, back pain, etc., but not Fibro. The biggest problem is that I don’t even believe in it, which makes it almost impossible to talk about. I can’t believe it. If I believe in it, I will manifest it, right? Fibromyalgia must be a trap.

Nature is how I used to get my head on straight. I loved to wander in nature. I haven’t been able to hike for a few years, but I am not ready to give up and live the rest of my life in pain.

This choose-my-own-adventure must have a happy ending somewhere, right? So, I am going backpacking, and I pretend I don’t know that I could be lying.

My 17-year-old told me we were going backpacking and that she would carry the tent since my feet hurt. And that she would buy ultralight camping gear since she has more money than I do. I said, Great.

So that settles it. We are beginning to plan. Starting out slow in spring by staying at a hike-in campground. We will only travel accessible paths.

I hope I am telling the truth.

PS. Whose 17-year-old has more money than they do? wtf