The article had echoed in my head for days afterwards: “I was lost,” the guy had said, “but I found myself out there.”
Was I lost? Not technically. But I had lost something that I couldn’t even articulate—and I’d gone far too long without finding it. Was it waiting for me in the Wyoming wilderness? Probably not. But I had to start somewhere.
In this passage, Helen comments on her motivation for stepping away from her mundane life as a divorced schoolteacher to take part in a three-week backcountry survival course in Wyoming. After her brother, Duncan, recommends the Back Country Survival Company's Hiking for Beginners, Helen researches wilderness survival courses and finds a testimonial from a participant who had been "lost" but then "found" himself while hiking. As simplistic and cliché as the sentiment is, it speaks to Helen's feeling that she is still looking to reorient herself in life following the failure of her marriage. Although she doesn't believe she will necessarily find herself, Helen is willing to shed her cynicism and open herself to the possibility of what might happen when she dares to challenge herself to move outside her comfort zone.
I really, really wanted a Certificate.
I really, really wanted to be the kind of person who could dare to want a Certificate without seeming utterly ridiculous.
I really, really wanted a slip of paper that proved, at last, that I was okay.
Among Helen's goals for her trip is to receive a Certificate of Merit, three of which are awarded on each BCSC trip to outstanding participants. In this passage, Helen explains she wants the Certificate because it will confirm that she is "okay." One year after her divorce, Helen continues to feel she hasn't recovered from the emotional trauma of leaving her alcoholic husband, who wasn't there for her when she miscarried what would have been their first child. This passage is significant because it shows Helen's desire to have external validation of something she can only decide for herself. While she believes the Certificate will be the confirmation she needs to feel she has bounced back from her divorce, a Certificate will mean nothing if she hasn't worked through her trauma first.
“I’m not joking.”
“Don’t tell me I can’t do this,” I said.
“Helen, you can’t change who you are.”
“Sure I can.”
“It’s just not like you to do stuff like this.”
“It didn’t used to be like me,” I said then, “back when you knew me. But I’ve turned myself into an animal now. A bloodthirsty animal.”
“Why?”
“You don’t want me to answer that.” I was regretting picking up the phone. Sometimes anybody really isn’t better than nobody.
“Helen,” Mike said then, “you don’t have to do this.”
“I do, actually. I really do.”
“I want you to come home.”
The night before Helen and Jake set out with their BCSC group to spend three weeks in the wilderness, Helen receives a call from her ex-husband, Mike, while she is eating a dinner of various gas-station snacks alone. Having called her the night before seeking emotional support about a near-relapse, Mike continues to test Helen's boundaries by trying to influence Helen's choices. In this exchange, Mike attempts to hold Helen back as she seeks to challenge herself and defy expectations. Rather than let her move on with her life, Mike's disrespect of personal boundaries leads him to ask her to come back to him rather than pursue her ambition. The exchange is significant because it shows how even though Mike is in recovery for his alcoholism, he tries to perpetuate the codependent dynamic he relied on during their marriage, especially when Helen is making it clear that she wishes to leave that version of herself in the past.
Of course, there had been somebody. A vastly inappropriate somebody Mike himself had interrupted me with. Mike and Jake knew each other, of course, from many Thanksgivings and New Year’s Eve parties at Grandma GiGi’s, and I could have shocked the hell out of him if I’d said something about it right then, which was tempting. But I didn’t. Partly because Mike and I really weren’t close enough anymore to share anything that private. Partly because I wasn’t sure myself if messing around with Jake had been kind of awesome or totally pathetic. And partly—though I never would have admitted this, even to myself—because something about that almost-night with Jake had cracked open a place so tender in my heart I knew I had no choice but to stand twenty-four-hour guard in front of it.
While on the phone with Helen, Mike attempts to manipulate Helen by casually commenting on the number of people he has been dating since their divorce. For Helen, the year has been one of rumination and isolation, but Mike continues to exhibit compulsive behavior, filling the codependent void left by Helen by seeking another woman to rebound with. In this passage, Helen comments on her temptation to shock Mike by mentioning her recent hookup with Jake. She decides not to say anything, however, as she is inclined to be emotionally guarded. The hurt of Jake's rejection still sits with Helen, and she feels the need to keep her heart protected from anyone trying to get close, however manipulative their approach may be.
“What about you?” I asked. “What good things will you remember about this day?”
“So far?” she asked. “The cowboy coffee we boiled on the stove. The sound of the wind rustling those pine branches overhead. The mossy smell of the woods. A little forget-me-not that was growing on the stream bank. That good, snug feeling when you settle your pack on your back and snap the hip belt. The crisp feeling in the air. The sound of the stream. The heart-shaped stone I found this morning near our tarp. The burn in my muscles as we go uphill. The quiet pat-pat noise our boots make on the trail. That crazy red bird that flew past a few minutes ago.”
“You’re too good,” I said. “You’re freaking me out.”
“I’ve just had more practice,” she said. “You can be just like me.”
“Probably not just like you,” I said. I was fairly certain, at this point, I was stuck being me.
“I told myself before this trip that I would appreciate everything,” she said. “It’s my battle cry: Appreciate Everything.”
In this exchange, Helen admires Windy's ability to look for the positive in life. Cynical and guarded by nature, Helen is surprised that Windy can so easily employ the principles of the "positive psychology" she studies. One of Windy's pieces of advice is to think of three good things that have occurred in a day so that she can develop a more appreciative mindset. Without having to think about it, Windy rifles off several minor instances of beauty or serenity from the day so far. Helen would like to access the same well of appreciation within herself, but she doubts she can be just like Windy, as Windy suggests. Nonetheless, Helen goes on to try her own version of Windy's "Appreciate Everything" philosophy.
I gave a little smile, and looked down at my hands in my lap.
After a minute, Jake said, “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
I looked away. “Of course it was my fault. I was the big sister.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I should have gone with him.”
“What were you—nine years old?”
I nodded. I knew what Jake was trying to say. I realized that it was complicated, and that siblings aren’t the same as parents, and that I should have forgiven myself long ago. But there was no changing any of it, and even though I knew that no regret was strong enough to change the past, I still kept hanging on to it. Somehow, it seemed like the only decent thing to do.
In this exchange, Helen discusses with Jake the trauma of her brother Nathan drowning the year before Duncan was born. Helen comments on how she has always blamed herself to some degree, as she was the older sibling and she had turned down little Nathan's invitation to explore the docks with him. This exchange is significant because it shows Helen finally being able to discuss the "family tragedy" Jake alluded to in the second chapter—a subject Helen claimed she never broached with anyone. Here, Jake displays emotional intelligence as he encourages Helen to talk through the unwarranted guilt she still carries.
I took a deep breath. “So, you see, I lost everybody.”
In a quiet voice, Jake said, “Not Duncan.”
I looked over.
“You didn’t lose Duncan. He loves you. Actually, ‘love’ is not a big enough word. He adores you. You barely tolerate him, but he would give you the skin off his back.”
“I don’t want the skin off his back.”
Jake gave a tiny shrug. “The point remains.”
I took a long breath and thought about everything I’d just told him. Then I said something that I must have always known, but I had never articulated until that moment: “I guess I haven’t forgiven him for not being Nathan.” It was surreal to hear myself say the words.
Jake looked over at me. “That sounds about right.” Then he went on. “But he didn’t ask to be born. He was pulled into that shit-storm the same way you were. By accident.”
As Helen and Jake continue to talk about Nathan's death and how it affected the rest of the family, Helen admits that her grieving mother's decision to get pregnant with Duncan seemed to hasten the end of their parents' marriage and contribute to their mother's mental health problems. Rather than fill in the hole left by Nathan, Duncan was a difficult child who was suddenly at the center of a crumbling family. In this significant exchange, Jake helps Helen realize that her resentment for Duncan is tied to him failing to meet the impossible expectation of "being Nathan." As Jake points out, Duncan is just as much a victim of the family tragedy as the rest of them.
“Not really. People can get hooked on longing, though. They wind up liking the wanting more than the having.”
“Exactly!” I said. “Is that fixable?”
Windy thought for a minute before answering. “Well,” she said, “there’s a lot more neurological plasticity in the brain than we used to believe. In theory, anything’s possible. But that’s in theory. The most important thing to remember is that getting what you want doesn’t make you happy.”
“It doesn’t?” I asked.
“Not for long. Happiness is more about appreciation than acquisition.”
During one of Helen and Windy's discussions about the subject of positive psychology, Windy offers sound advice about the difference between longing (desire) and the feeling of being content that is actual happiness. In this exchange, Windy subverts Helen's belief that happiness is getting what you want; she explains that truly happy people have learned to appreciate what they already have. Luckily, Windy claims, it is possible for people to learn to appreciate things more easily by making an effort to think about what's good in their life instead of focusing on the negative.
“And I gave you Jake because you absolutely never believe in yourself—and he finds a way to believe in you every damn day.”
At the end of the BCSC trip, Helen's twelve-person hiking group is divided into smaller groups of four to be sent off on "solo" hikes. Beckett, their instructor, seeks hikers' requests about who they'd like to be grouped with; however, he disregards their requests and pairs people based on each person's qualities and deficiencies. Although Helen asked not to be paired with Jake, Beckett explains that he put them together because she is a skilled map reader and Beckett is nearly blind; also, she is constantly injuring herself, and he is the group EMT. In this passage, he adds that beyond those practical considerations, he paired them together because Helen always doubts herself and Jake never stops believing in her abilities. Despite her aversion to being paired with Jake, Helen must accept that Beckett has seen through their superficial distancing efforts and understands their true compatibility.
After a year of talking to almost no one but Pickle and feeling a constant, unfulfilled longing for some kind of happiness almost like it was a prize I could win, I had finally come to understand that not getting what you want is actually the trick to it all. Because not getting what you want forces you to appreciate what you already have.
Although certain aspects of Helen's backcountry search for reinvention and renewal were not fulfilled, such as winning a Certificate of Merit, she returns to Windy's thoughts on what happiness is really made of. While Helen had previously been living in a place of desire, thinking that happiness would come if she achieved what she longed for, by the end of the trip, Helen understands that appreciation is the key to being happy. She concludes that it can be good not to get what you want, because it forces you to understand the value of what you have, which has been overlooked while you've been longing for more.
