Staying Sane, Getting Outside, and Battling FOMO: A Trip Down the Juan De Fuca Trail

Go get outside! Please :)

The mud is up to my knees. A passing hiker just sprayed herself with bear spray. Some of Canada's most privileged youths are my sole responsibility, and I am starting to wonder how I got here. Guiding on the Juan De Fuca Trail would have come as a surprise to high school Ryder. I had never even gone on an overnight backpacking trip until I was 20, this was not on the bingo card of things I thought I would be doing before age 30. Yet due to some inspiration from my dad, coupled with a prescription to cure my hangovers in University, thrown together with my deep love of the great outdoors here I am. Trekking into one of the most beautiful coastal rainforests in the world, giant Cedars and Douglas Firs tower over me, kids with packs bigger than themselves stumble through knee high mud, and giant waves lash the rocky shore. The boarding school I work at (yes, it's just like Hogwarts) takes all the grade nine year students outside over two weekends, to either the Juan de Fuca trail or sea kayaking around Portland Island. It can be a life changing experience for these kids giving them an opportunity to grow and learn about themselves through hard work and play in the great outdoors. With their own words they would describe the weekend:  “Not to glaze this trail or anything but it's pretty dope” or when asked a favorite part of the trail “Leaving, definitely leaving to go back to school” and a big highlight, “The food wasn't bad.” They say school is wasted on the young and while these replies would have you thinking along the same lines I would just laugh and say you haven't seen them out there. These kids are looking up at the big trees above, climbing into them, jumping from rock to rock, skipping stones, using bull kelp to pretend to be Indiana Jones, and telling stories! I think that was my favorite part of the trip: these kids would essentially play DnD (Dungeons and Dragons) for hours on end. While walking single file through dense jungle and craggy rocks one would talk and the other would listen, occasionally asking a question or giving an opinion on which fork in the road to take.  “Okay, so bow or sword?” “Bow” “Okay, armed with a bow you arrive at the witch's house, do you enter?”  “I do, but with caution.” “So, you've entered and….” For hours each one would take their turn feeding their friends with stories from their imagination. I would listen in, doing my best to follow from a zombie apocalypse scenario to a spy story they had concocted, finding myself waiting to hear what happened next. 

It's the type of trip that puts some wind in your sails and makes the future seem full of possibility. I am cooking dinner with the kids underneath trees hundreds of years old, looking at black bears and seals and bull kelp and a million and one slugs. Those giant trees, the Jurassic park style ferns, waterfalls that acted as showers, tide pool aquariums, and no real responsibility (besides making sure no one dies, easier said than done with Grade 9 boys) is a pretty magical way to spend a couple weekends in September. When you are having such an incredible experience, how can you not be a bit hopeful that there is more of this magic to come? As we trek through the woods and the boys make poop jokes and tell their stories and talk about what they want their future to be, it makes me feel very grateful for the present. I remember being their age, I was so anxious yet confident, a swirling mess of hormones that wanted to do great things but didn't know how. Now my goals are different and more complicated yet the need to do something big is still there. Instead of wanting to be a college runner or a famous movie star, I’d be happy to not twist an ankle, see my friends and family more, get my PR (permanent residency), make a living wage, travel the world, and help others. Rough translation: surf Indonesian barrels with my pals, be universally loved, make millions (ethically), and be Mother Teresa (humbly, of course). 

I am one of the luckiest humans on earth, full stop. The fact I get to do this as even a portion of my job is something I DO NOT TAKE FOR GRANTED. Being a Guide out on the trail is the best work I can possibly get in my opinion but (!) it's not 100% roses! My mom always asks me if I am totally serene out there in the woods. I can’t lie, I am not a zen master.  My mind doesn't turn off: instead I’m thinking of my friends, the gal I like, the concerts I’m missing, and all the other fomo (fear of missing out, just in case my grandmother is reading this) most people in their early 20’s are dealing with. Those thoughts usually only come when I’m in my tent at night, the escape of sleep still far away.  Sure deep breathing and journaling can help through the night but when I wake up to lingering anxiety the only band aid is to get going. It is not a fix-all but is a sure step in the right direction regardless of if I am deep in the backcountry or in my apartment. When the rats are gnawing on the brain and all you want to do is to curl up into a ball and not move, you’ve gotta get going. Go stare up at a big tree and move your body, call a friend, or your parents, write and write some more, clean, plan an adventure, get out of your head and get going!

Moving through the forest and along the sea gets me going! I am tired and sore and exhausted but oh so content. That's why these bouts of fomo are so annoying, I am aware of how lucky I am. I am doing what so many other people wish they could be doing! What I am constantly working on, some days more successfully than others, is internalizing that there are infinite possibilities with life, every decision is a new possibility, I can either get overwhelmed by making the most perfect, coolest, best choice, or I can learn to make the best out of whatever choice I have made. I know none of this is revolutionary or original but as my high school French teacher Mr. Chid would say, “Repetition is the key to learning” so I keep repeating these mantras to myself. That's why being out on the trail, leading kids through their own obstacles, their own heartache, their joy, their ups and their downs, their own here and now, is so important to me. It is a constant reminder of the human experience we are all going through and a reminder we are not alone in this.  When I was a kid I didn’t know how to process the feelings of anxiety, the fatigue that comes with it, the fomo and it ate me up inside. I was a very happy kid but I was riddled with anxiety.  I see myself in these kids: when I  listen to them open up about their lives, their insecurities, it helps me deal with mine. These kids are feeling how I did in 9th grade and I’m feeling how they will feel at 24; it's all happened before and will again and the fact I get to be on this version of the ride of life is pretty amazing. 

My mud-caked legs are tired, I have finally stopped the kids from wrestling each other to the ground, and no one has stolen any of the oreos’ (yet). I am exhausted from the week of work before this “weekend”. With a moment at last for myself I walk over to the small clearing where I’ve put my tent and I force myself to stare at the setting golden light coming through the trees. I push all my fomo away, repeating to myself "What is meant to be, will be.” I look around, the golden light illuminating the giant trees above, the laughs and yells of kids echo around, and a roaring waterfall is behind me. How could I possibly want to be anywhere else for this moment? I hear the waves crash on the shore just out of sight and with the trees standing still in front of me I cock my head to the side. They are trying to tell me something, the whispers of their leaves are just now starting to reach my ears…