My journey thankfully doesn’t start with grief, but the journey of where_she_walks_ does. Forgive me, but I’ll jump straight in.
In December 2021, a friend and ex-colleague of mine passed away. It was a huge shock. Despite talking with close friends about our shared grief, I often caught myself crying whilst driving, or in other moments of calm when I was left alone with my thoughts. I wanted both a distraction from the grief as well as space to grieve freely. It sounds contradictory, I know.
I suggested to my partner that we set a challenge for the year ahead: #52peaksin52weeks…I work in marketing, of course we had a hashtag! Needless to say, over the next 12 months, we summited 51 hills and mountains in the UK and 1 in Australia.
Did it distract me from grief? Yes, often it did. Did it give me space to grieve freely? Absolutely…I stomped around England, Scotland and Wales often with tears in my eyes (I actually cried a lot in Adelaide, South Australia, but that wasn’t about grief). Did the grief magically disappear? No, of course not. In reality, what the challenge did do was to help me feel more and process more. It also made me realise that I don’t love walking uphill as much as I just love walking. Towards the end of the year, I was starting to think about my next challenge…
My goals shifted quite dramatically. I decided that bagging trigs, ethels, munros, etc. wasn’t for me. I wanted quality over quantity. I wanted to walk and keep walking until I couldn’t walk anymore.
The only long-distance walk I was aware of at that time was the Pennine Way, the oldest national trail in Britain. Without much thought I declared to my partner that I was going to walk it by myself in 2023. OK, he said, and that was that.
It took me about 3 months after that to start sharing my goal with other people, most of whom were supportive, clearly having as much knowledge of the trail as I had myself! But as well as being a marketer, I’m also a book-lover, so naturally I grabbed the nearest Cicerone guidebook and started planning the trip. In March I decided to tell the world (there’s no going back once it’s on Instagram, right?) and launched where_she_walks_ to hold myself accountable for this crazy idea!
Spoiler alert, I walked the Pennine Way solo in 2023. But more on that later.
Thoughts on grief
We all grieve differently and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to overcome it. But for me, walking the Pennine Way (more so than the 52 peaks) gave me time, space and solitude to accept the sadness, accept the loss and feel gratitude for life, legs(!) and loved ones.
If you’re struggling with grief, I hope you can find the time and energy to walk.
Kate x