Tomorrow morning, I’m hiking a mountain I’ve never climbed before.
My bag is packed. My alarm is set. I’ve checked the weather more times than I’d like to admit. The trail map is downloaded AND printed, my water and electrolytes are ready… I’ve done everything I can to prepare.
And yet…
There is still a little voice asking, What if you’re not ready?
That voice shows up before every new mountain.
What if it’s harder than I expected?
What if I have to turn around?
What if I can’t do it?
I used to think confidence meant that voice would eventually disappear. Now I think confidence is hearing it… and taking the first step anyway.
Lately, I’ve realized the mountains aren’t the only place that ask for that kind of courage.
So do people. I’m not talking about romantic partners either. I mean friendship. Real friendship.
The kind where someone knows the chapters of your life you wish had been written differently… The kind where they’ve seen you on the bathroom floor, at rock bottom, starting over, scream crying, celebrating wins that once felt impossible and turning around to question yourself all over again.
The kind where they know exactly how loud your scar tissue can be.
And they stay.
For a long time and even recently – I thought healing meant becoming easier to love.
Less emotional.
Less sensitive.
Less anxious.
Less messy.
Less. Less. Less.
I thought if I healed enough, I’d finally become the version of myself that no one wanted to leave. But tonight while packing my bags, I realized something that changed my heart.
The people who love me most have never loved a polished version of me. They’ve only ever known the real me.
The woman who overthinks.
Texts like a desperate ex.
Who laughs too loudly.
The woman who cries when she’s overwhelmed.
The woman who’s still figuring things out one mountain, one hard conversation and one deep breath at a time.
They know my story. Not just the highlight reel. They know where I’ve been. They know what I’ve survived.
And… knowing me more has never made them love me less. If anything, it’s made our friendships stronger.
That realization has given me more confidence than any summit ever could. Confidence isn’t believing everyone will understand you.
It’s realizing you no longer need everyone to.
Some people aren’t meant to stay. Some people aren’t capable of holding the weight of another person’s story. That doesn’t make them bad people. It also doesn’t make your story too heavy.
Every mountain asks me to show up exactly as I am. It strips every place I have left to hide. My closest friendships do the same.
Maybe that’s why they both feel like home, not because they expose me but because they’ve created a place where I no longer feel like I have to.
Tomorrow morning I’ll climb another unfamiliar mountain, and I know somewhere on the trail I will cry a little bit wondering if I’m strong enough to finish.
But I’ll remember… the hardest climb was never the mountain. It was letting people see me exactly as I am.
and they stayed.