The Trail That Met Me There 

Over the past few months, I've been preparing my house to sell. 

As I've cleaned, made some updates, packed, and sorted through too much stuff, I've done a lot of reflecting on the many experiences I’ve had here over the past eight years. This is the ninth house I’ve lived in during my 57 years. I expected it to be my last, but I’ve thought that before.  

I love adventure, new experiences, and the possibility that comes with change, but I also crave routine, what’s familiar, and relationships with others and the land around me. 

For much of my life, change wasn't easy. 

As a child, I was incredibly shy. Making friends felt difficult. Even when I got older, simple things like calling to order a pizza could feel overwhelming. Looking back now, it's hard to reconcile that version of myself with the woman who would later travel the world, walk onto a TEDx stage, start a business, and continually reinvent herself. 

Somewhere along the way, I stopped needing to know exactly how things would unfold and learned to trust the next step before I could see the entire path. 

One of the greatest companions during the past eight years has been the trail behind my house. Almost every day, I would walk down into the ravine and back up again. Sometimes I carried a recorder and talked through ideas or channeled my inner wisdom. Sometimes I worked through challenges. Sometimes I simply walked and noticed things for the first or hundredth time.  

The trail was where I would ground and expand. Ideas for workshops and talks emerged on that trail. Questions, insights, frustrations, and moments of clarity and deep awareness all found their way onto that path. 

I loved checking the game camera to see who had visited overnight. I loved finding fresh animal tracks in the sand and wondering what story they told. I loved watching the seasons change and being reminded that life is constantly moving, whether we notice it or not. 

Years ago, I noticed a rock formation that reminded me of a keyhole. After that, I began seeing similar formations elsewhere along the trail. Whether they were actually keyholes or simply rocks shaped by time didn't really matter. My imagination had fun with the possibilities of what doors they might open! 

Perhaps that's what I loved most about the trail. It taught me to pay attention. Not just to nature, but to my own thoughts, assumptions, and the subtle ways life was inviting me to see something differently. 

It also created space. A space to think, reflect, listen...to melt into nature and remember what really matters.  

I may not have always received the answers I was looking for, but I almost always came back with greater clarity
or a deeper sense of peace. 

So, as I prepare to leave this house, people have asked if I am sad. Maybe a little. A few months ago, I moved through a period of deep reflection that coincided with knowing this house would soon go on the market. Interestingly, I even got pneumonia, which kept me off the trail for several months. 

Today, I am okay with completing this chapter and moving on if that is where the flow of life is taking me. That doesn't diminish what this place has meant to me, in fact, if anything, it makes me appreciate it more. This house and land witnessed eight important years of my life. It witnessed healing, growth, new ideas, new directions, and countless moments that shaped who I am today. 

Sometimes the most graceful thing we can do is appreciate a chapter fully and then turn the page. The trail met me exactly where I needed to be met for eight years and now it's time for a new adventure.  

I don't know what the next trail looks like yet, but I trust that when I find it, it will meet me there too. 

Is there a place, trail, neighborhood, home, park, coffee shop, or landscape that has become part of your story?

I'd love to hear about it.

 Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D. is the founder of Disrupting Gracefully. She lives and walks in Colorado.