Take a Hike, Mama: The Fear of Falling In
The Take a Hike series is off to a tremendous start! Our state parks passport book has five stamps. We’ve completed three hikes in the “Kids in Parks” series, finished our first summer reading round at the library (ma, got a mug!), and hit local attractions with kids in tow. In May, we picked strawberries; today’s adventure was blueberries with three other mamas and their chickadees. The little hands shoveled more ripe and unripe blueberries into their mouths than into their buckets. Fortunately, there’s a funny “sin bucket” that likely has all our names in it to ease our conscience.
I watch my oldest enjoy the magic of friendship as my friend’s child hands him a blueberry she picked just for him. She smiles as he accepts it, and my precious boy, of very few words, says thank you without a prompt. My heart sighs, my eyes swell, and I allow peace to envelop us in the magic of this moment. It’s interesting how kids find peace outdoors, in the quiet ease under our Creator and the embrace of Mother Nature.
“This kind of thing just feels like, ‘Oh yes, this is what we are meant to be doing!’”
In agreement, I smile and tell my friend how I was inspired by Michaeleen Doucleff’s Hunt, Gather, Parent in creating my Take a Hike Mama series. We are meant to raise our best in a collective community. I didn’t tell her it was also my desire for community, to surround myself with like-minded moms as I built my mom’s self-efficacy and to combat motherhood loneliness we all experience.
As a highly sensitive person, I’ve lived with relative loneliness, realizing that most people aren’t deep, poetic thinkers. My feelings are vast, immense, and empathetic, so I learned long ago how to set beautiful, articulate boundaries that only the very best, justice-driven people join me. However, I needed to expand my community when I became a parent. This included local support, those in the chapter with me, and honestly, hunkering down and calling my current town home rather than referencing where I grew up. I’ve only lived in my college town for, oh, you know, fifteen years. The nest is built babe; now make the neighborhood.
My friend Emily Chamberlain and I were laughing at our one-year-olds and their deep sense of fear of missing out (FOMO). My deep empathy showed in my pregnancies as I took on my children’s personalities. My oldest is quite the hermit (we thrived while socially distancing!), and my youngest is a FOMO fiend.
“I remember that,” she shared, “only you are more someone who’s afraid of falling in.”
Touché, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Yet, here I am, reaching out, trying to grow, to plant and nurture seeds of community. Here’s the truth: so many fail to reach out for fear of rejection, but that’s not my fear. I take no offense at rejection. If anything, sometimes my Capricorn self is most often relieved. But this group is different. This group we’ve created is doing life alongside people without obligation or necessity, but rather to say, “I see you, I hold space for you, and I am with you.” How did we become so far removed from this way of life?
This is the absolute best way for me to break bread with folks. If families sign up, great! If they don’t, I will still take mini-adventures with my crew. It turns out the fear of falling in isn’t so scary when you’ve mastered the art of swimming. So here we are, inviting one another to walk alongside each other and to remind each other’s toddlers that, no, we don’t eat blueberries off the ground.
Happy trails to you and yours, mama!
With love,
Beth Anne
