never too late

Our cut-off date

Last Thursday at Thanksgiving dinner, a friend-of-the host asked me, “So how much longer is ‘Blissful Hiker’ going to go on?” 

I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant at first. We’d been talking much of the afternoon about my hiking adventures with his many questions coming at me at lighting speed. I thought at first he was hoping we’d change the subject!

But it turns out he quite literally wanted to know if I had an end date in mind for blissfully hiking. 

Caught off guard, I offered up the thought, “When I’m dead!” 

But that just spurred on a new conversation about just how long our physical bodies can handle the rigors of an outdoor sport like long-distance backpacking.

While the host was adamant no one can sleep on the ground after 70, another guest around the table shared tales of a 90-year-old section hiking the Superior Hiking Trail, even in inclement weather. 

So, what is a cut-off date? When are we are just too old to do what we love anymore?

Limits as superpowers

The Columbian writer Gabriel García Márquez has this too say about aging and our dreams:

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”

As a cancer thriver with two fake hips on the cusp of 60, I am very honest with myself about my limitations. No matter how fit I am, I simply don’t have the stamina or the strength I once had.

Age really is not “just a number.” We do physically decline!

But our attitudes to aging and limitations is what I’m talking about here. I believe our limitations can be used to our advantage. Like a superpower, they can entirely transform our perspective.  

Because I am “a hiker of a certain age,” I can longer “wing it” on trail, or at least not as easily. That requires that I plan more carefully and take longer to get where I’m going. 

The benefits are that I have more time to enjoy each step and surprise along the way, as well as the flexibility of schedule and mindset to change plans if I choose to. 

My age and my limits are really an asset to successful strategizing. I’ve needed to search for the adaptations that will make things work for me, like taking a more comfortable air mattress that makes sleeping on the ground a joy.

(Will it stay that way in a decade? Maybe I’ll have to take two!)

Another gift of being an aging long distance backpacker is that I have seen a lot in my lifetime, for which I am deeply grateful. And that means that getting to the finish line is far less important than enjoying the journey.

Blissful as an aspiration

Remember that your superpower is not a list of accomplishments, but how you lived your dreams in your own unique way. 

That’s why I’m not just any old Hiker, but a Blissful Hiker, someone with an aspiration packed in my rucksack along with that giant sleeping pad – and aspiration to always be mindful and curious.

Recently, I was given an assignment to write a letter from my 80-year-old self, to my 59-year-old self. I can see that wizened woman I’ll become cackling away at my younger self and quoting Plutarch, “Be ruled by time, the wisest counselor of all.”

My Thanksgiving dinner partner was not wrong in questioning if I had thought about just how much longer I would go on walking the world. That’s true for all of us.

So if you have dreams you’ve always wanted to pursue, don’t wait. Act! 

Start right where you and as you are, even if the timing/the finances/the relationship/the stars aren’t perfectly aligned – or heaven for fend, you’re afraid of looking silly.

(No one is sillier looking than me on trail covered head to toe to block out UV rays and marching to the beat of my own drummer!)

Because for all of us, even this Blissful Hiker, there’s no time like the present and eventually, our precious time will run out.