After years of not blogging and stopping my blog in the middle of my last sabbatical, I have been at a loss as to how to get started writing again.  So here goes.

Recap:

In 2019, I was elected to be the chair of the faculty senate at the tri-campus University of Washington. It’s a 3 year term where I started as vice chair, then chair, and then chair of the committee on planning and budget. During this time, I regularly met with the president and provost in my role as the voice of the faculty in co-managing the university. In 2020, covid hit and I was one of 4 people in the room making the decision to be the first university in the country to go to remote learning.

At the end of that gig, I went on sabbatical when I shattered my ankle. When they operated on it, I wasn’t sure I would be able to ski, run, bike or hike again. After 4 years and a ton of PT, my right leg is still smaller than the left from all the time I was non weight bearing.  But I do have it back to 80-90% of what it once was. Some days are better than others.

When I went back to my faculty position, I had difficulty adjusting back from the intensity of the work in the senate office as well as dealing with the limited mobility I had. My way out of stress is through activity so I had no outlet. This was compounded by my department who also had difficulty having me come back. So, in 2024, after not being able to recover from the stress of leading the university through one of the most challenging times, I retired from the University of Washington and took an administrative job at a small rural community college. In 2025, after learning a friend my age (62) had alzheimers and another died of cancer, I realized that, if I am lucky, I have about 10 more years of good health left. The years of chronic stress at the university have been hell on my body.

So on my 62nd birthday, I fully retired. After working for over 45 years, I was definitely undefined, divided by zero. I had no plan for what I would do. I just knew I couldn’t continue the life I was leading. I was adrift and the sea of my life seemed like it was raging. At that time, a good friend let me use his off-grid cabin in Arizona to have some time to think and then, in a crazy twist of fate, another friend asked me to help with a volunteer project in the Mojave desert. Those moments were beacons for me.

I realized what I wanted to do in retirement was to find the adventure girl buried in me after a lifetime of responsibility and get her to come out and play. So I started to think back to when I was young and what I always wanted to do. The answer was quick. After growing up in northern Maine in the shadow of Mt Katahdin, watching hikers come through town at the end of their hikes, I always said I would hike the Appalchian trail. So here I am, on the trail.

I am attempting a flip flop hike. I started in the middle and am hiking north to Katahdin. If I make it, then, after a week or so with my family, I will come back to the middle and hike southward through Shenandoah and the Smokies. The whole adventure, if I finish it, should take around 6-7 months. Only 25% of the people who start actually finish. I have no grandiose ideas that I will be one of them. But what I do know is that I would always regret if I didn’t try. So, even if it just becomes a section hike, I am going to make the attempt.

I have been training and practicing for the last 5 months. I am in the best shape of my life even with my spicy foot and ankle that barks at me at the end of long days. I know there will be challenges of storms, falls, and days where I won’t want to even get out of my tent. I know the mental game will be the hardest. I also know that I am privileged to even have to opportunity to go on this adventure. The choices of my life and things that have happened to me have led me to this moment and that is a gift that I am damn grateful for.

So, follow along if you are interested. I am going to try to blog once a week whenever I am in a town washing clothes and charging electronics. If you have questions about my adventure, just ask and I will do my best to answer them. You can ask me anything, yes even about pooping.

As you can tell from my writing, I am not using AI and I pledge not to. So accept the grammar issues, spelling errors and typos from writing this blog with my phone. Remember that I was a math professor, not a creative writer. Also, I am not selling anything or monetizing anything. It’s just for fun. I think mostly, it’s to help me with the mental game and your questions will help me with that too. I will try not to be preachy but just give an honest reflection of the joys and the sorrows.

Each week, I will leave you with a favorite quote.  Here is the one for this week:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Cheers!

Just a girl, walking along undefined,

Robin