t.o.t —> about hiking

July 10, 2012

Miscellaneous

shirt: madewell . sweater: target . skirt: f21 . shoes: jeffery campbell . bracelet: j.crew and f21 . watch: dkny
hiking. do you like it? well camden does, in fact he loooovvvess it. pretty much he wants to marry it kind of love. that is what we did on our first date you know, hiking i mean. did i ever tell you that? well it goes a little something like this.
let’s skip all that planning and calling and how we got there stuff and start here, which would be in the car after he picked me up for our first date to go on a hike. first of all, a little background to fully grasp the story.
i wasn’t sure how good at hiking camden was but to put it nicely it wasn’t my strongest attribute, but i thought no harm, just a fun little first date hike. i even wore hiking shoes instead of all stars (my shoe of choice back then). well lets just say a very soon to be learned fact about this camden kid is that he was a macho, outdoorsy, hiking guru, that specialized in all things fast and challenging. now that we’ve got that out of the way lets move on.
so anyway we are currently in the car on our way to our hike and i just casually ask, how hard this hike was that we are about to embark on. – not wanting to sound to “woosy” on our first date. “oh really easy!” he says “like really easy”. ‘great’ i thought, i wouldn’t have to look like a total loser after all. 
it wasn’t that i couldn’t hike, it was just that i wasn’t sure what his definition of “easy” was. turns out his definition was what mine would be for extremely long, hard, and all out brutality.
this so called easy hike wound back and forth up a mountain for who knows how long, and this thing was steep too, i mean really steep. but in front of me with no shown strife at all hiked camden, just chatting away. i kept trying to open my mouth to respond because i could have really seen this conversation going somewhere pretty interesting, but all that would come out was a soft squeak, something resembling “water please”. 
finally, at the top, we sat down to eat our little subway picnic where i finally caught my breath and said more than a few measly words. it was half dark on our way down and since going down a hike is my specialty, the conversation consisted of both of us, my lungs now full of beautiful fresh air. 
i remember on our way down camden mentioning something like he had always wanted to marry a girl who could hike, bike, mountain climb, and all those fun things with him. in my head i thought ‘oh brother, where can this go?’. (please let the record show that besides the occasional hike and neighborhood family bike ride i had never done any of these things, at least at the level he was talking about). however, as we continued to date these things became less important to camden, at least, luckily for me, less important for me to do with him, and he was more than happy to do them alone, as long as we could still do the occasional hike together.
now when we go on hikes camden fully understands i’m all gung-ho as long as he helps push me up the really steep hills because like i say: “it really makes it at least 30% easier . . almost like it’s flat . . . almost”. this little thing we have going may just work out after all. 
love you camden.

10 thoughts on “t.o.t —> about hiking”

  4. AshleyTX

    I don't remember how i found your website but, i am SO glad I did! I love your stories they're always so refreshing and very humble. You are an amazing writer, you should consider turning your gift into a career I would read ANY book that has your name on it!

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *