Guten Tag, Reader,

I knew the words were going to come out of my mother’s mouth eventually. Not in every conversation, but certainly in every conversation about any of my adventures:

• Going to the island of Corse on a motorcycle with my boyfriend when I was 17
• Studying abroad for a year
• Traveling to any place outside of Western Europe
• Eating sushi
• Hiking the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim
• Rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon (twice)
• Moving to the Rocky Mountains
• Buying a house
• Building a career
• Letting that career go and working less to live more

My mother would never say anything like, “But that’s dangerous.”

What she would say was a version of, “If only I had had the right husband, I would have______________ .”

Listen, my mom was not a meek woman. She was a feminist (-ish), an activist, and had no problem standing up to authority (mostly).

• I remember being in the street protesting nuclear weapons and singing, “We shall overcome.”
• I remember her arguing with my gynecologist because he didn’t treat me as a girl on her first visit should be treated.
• I remember her telling me that I could be whatever I wanted to be.

And deeply ingrained within me, parts of me still remember her subliminal message: “If you want to be happy, if you want your dreams to come true, you need a man. Not any man. The RIGHT man.”

I am the first to admit that I might not have done most of the things on the list above without the boy or man I was with at the time.

Luckily, it seemed like I had chosen them well.

Until in my 40s, I found myself thinking stories like

• “I am not hiking because we aren’t hiking because he isn’t hiking.”
• “I am not going to dinner parties because we aren’t going because he isn’t going.”
• “I am not happy because we aren’t happy because he isn’t making me happy.”

Had I become my mother?

Was I becoming the woman who, at 80, would look back at her life and say, “If only_________”

Luckily, although it felt as far removed from luck as Montana weather felt removed from spring on the vernal equinox, the same circumstance that had driven me to despair also drove me into a church basement for my first Al-Anon meeting 15 years ago.

The stories I heard there didn’t begin with “if only….” but with “what if….”

And after a while, I started asking…

• What if I went hiking by myself?
• What if I stopped disappointing my Self to please others?
• What if I claimed authority over my own happiness?

While I haven’t stopped asking (and hope I won’t), I do not want to fool you into believing that I got the answer I wanted every time. Much was hard. And many things I tried sucked. And I quit a few of those.

But you can’t quit something you haven’t tried. Instead, you might find yourself at 80, thinking, “If only…”

We have a good week left of Women’s History Month.

I invite you to check in with your Self this week (and beyond, obviously), and ask yourself what kind of herSTORY you would like to write with your remaining time on earth.

When you think of yourself towards the end, which “if only…” story would you hate to be telling?

Is there an “if only…” that is keeping you from coming on our wildHER adventure in Oregon?

Might “If only I had the time/ freedom/ fitness/ courage/ friends…“ be keeping you from the adventure of a lifetime?

• What if you dared reach out to me with your concerns about coming?
• What if you allowed yourself to consider coming?
• What if you came?

Listen, I know wildHER is a significant financial investment, and if your “if only” story is about a lack of money, I get it.

And… my scarcity brain has told me many a lie about lacking funds that almost kept me from working part-time, going through life coach training, saying yes to a river writing retreat that re-connected me with my inner author.

So ask yourself if that “I don’t have enough money to go on the wildHER adventure” story is true. And if it is, that’s okay.

What if you joined the Spring Adventure of the Midlife Wilderness Expeditions instead?

We are currently finishing the Winter Adventure, and the second year is about to start. All information and registration is here.​

I will see you back here in two weeks. If you liked this letter, please forward it to a friend.

Always on your side, truly,

p.s. If you got something from today's letter, why not buy me a coffee? I am keeping my writing AI-free, which means a lot of creative goes into it. You can leave me a tip here.