Tomorrow I’m hiking a mountain I’ve never climbed before.

It isn’t Everest.
It isn’t dramatic.

But tonight, my body is buzzing like it knows something my mind is pretending not to.

What if I can’t do it?
What if I turn around halfway?
What if I freeze?
What if I’m not as strong as I’ve been telling myself?

The fear is disproportionate to the task.

Which is how I know this isn’t about the mountain.

When you leave abuse, your nervous system rewrites the definition of danger.

Silence can feel dangerous. Freedom can feel dangerous. Choice can feel dangerous.

A new trail? Absolutely dangerous.

Not because of the incline or the weather. But because there is no one there to tell you when to stop.

There is no one to monitor your pace. No one to approve your steps. No one to correct your breathing. There is just you and that can be terrifying.

When I was in it – the relationship, the cycle, the shrinking – I thought bravery meant staying calm while chaos roared around me.

I thought bravery meant enduring. Absorbing. Explaining. Minimizing. Forgiving. Trying harder.

I was very brave then. But not in the way people clap for.

Sometimes hiking new trails, this mountain, feels like a betrayal to an old version of me.

The version that survived by scanning. By predicting storms. By shrinking her footprint so no one could accuse her of taking up too much space.

That version is screaming tonight: Stay where you know the exit. Where you’ve memorized the terrain. Stay small. Stay predictable. Stay safe.

But the truth I have to calmly explain back is that abuse trained my body to fear expansion. This hike is expansion.

Upward.
Outward.
Farther.

Brave isn’t loud, it’s packing extra water with shaky hands. Tying your boots anyway. Brave is showing up at the trailhead with a history that says “Don’t risk it,” and a present that says, “We’re going.”

Brave is not the absence of fear. It’s walking with it. It’s saying “I know you’re trying to protect me but we’re safe now. We can climb.”

Tomorrow I might turn around halfway and if I do, that will still be a victory.

Because I made the choice. I am the one deciding the path.

The mountain is not the enemy. The mountain is proof.

Proof that my body can move upward without being chased. Proof that effort doesn’t have to equal punishment.

Proof that I can be out of breath without being in danger.