A Woman to Admire

As a woman in my late, late, late 20’s, I’m on the hunt for a good woman to admire.

But how to you pick someone? 

What are the characteristics you look for?

                Successful.

                Poised.

                Educated.

                Confident.

                Eloquent.

It’s easy to think of men to admire: Colin Powell - before he basically became a Democrat, Mark Zuckerberg, John Roberts, Bill Gates.  

It’s easy to think of older women to admire: Madeline Albright, duh!!!  The Queen.  Condoleezza Rice.  Sandra Day O’Connor.  Oprah. 

And it’s VERY easy to think of dead people to admire: George Washington, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Steve Jobs.  Although sometimes I think dead people getting a better name for themselves just because they are dead.  Hello JFK! 

But I’m looking for a woman who isn’t too much out of my age range to look up to.

So who are my options?  Sheryl Sandberg.  Marissa Mayer.

But I’ve very different from these women.  I don’t have a wealthy family that gave me awesome opportunities.  I didn’t go to prestigious schools.  I make less than $100,000 a year.  I’m in a job with no growth opportunities.  And I don’t even have a window anywhere near my desk.  (Desk = cubicle). 

I suppose I could look up to women I actually know.  Women in my family.  Women at work.  My favorite authors. 

I feel like the first criteria a woman must have is that she must have done something amazing!  I’m not sure that I know anyone who has done anything amazing!  But what does ‘amazing’ mean? 

I used to know a guy who admired his mother more than anyone.  His father died suddenly, without life insurance, when he was around 7, and he had three other younger siblings.  Now, this guy admired his mother because she stepped up and raised four children, successfully ran the business the father started, and never complained.  I could never understand why he looked up to her so much.  Isn’t that what any mother would do?  How is she special?  Is she special just because she survived the situation and raised 4 children?

Maybe that’s the thing….this woman did something special for her family and maybe that’s the only thing that matters.

But I want to look up to a woman who did more than raise a family and had a mediocre job.   

Now, in my research,* I got a couple different answers.  From Google, the most frequent names I found were Hillary Clinton, Oprah, and European leaders.  From my friends, I heard answers such as teachers, bosses, parents, pastor’s wife, movie stars, and friends. 

Now, I’m not sure what the answer is.  I’m not sure how to pick someone to admire and I’m not sure that I admire anyone.  I wonder if it’s good to admire someone.  If you look up to someone so much, you might miss out on an awesome opportunity because the person you admire probably didn’t take that same path.  

And, if you admire someone, does that mean that you aspire to follow in their path?  Or does it mean that you pick and choose a few characteristics to mimic?

I don’t have the answer, but I know that I’m on the outlook for a woman to admire.  

Any suggestions????

*My research consisted of Google searches on “most powerful women,” “most admirable women,” and “most successful women.”  I also (unscientifically) polled my friends via text message and IM.

Winter Adventure.....Part 2

You know that feeling when you are laying in bed, awake, and you know your alarm is about to go off.  You don’t want to look at your phone because you don’t really want to know what time it is.  And, you know that if you hit the button, the phone will light up and you’ll instantly be stimulated when you should be resting.  And it’s not just about looking at the time.  You have to read that one email that came in at 2:47am.  Once you have deleted that piece of junk mail, you might as well check FaceBook too.  Then, the second you put the phone down, the light fades, you finally close your eyes and you become fully relaxed.  

That’s the moment the alarm goes off.  

By the time, layered myself up with proper clothing, my friend and I went downstairs for the hotel’s (crappy) breakfast.  My hike leader and the rest of the group showed up, and we went over proper equipment, which of course I spent half a fortune to purchase.  The group packed the cars and we set out for our “acclimation hike.”  We drove a few exits down the highway and hiked Mounts Dickey and Welch.  It was a total of about 4 1/2 miles.  We got a slight idea of the snow we would face and learned how to use crampons.  Although this was called our “acclimation hike,”   

Mt. Washington was vastly different than these smaller mountains. We began our hike on the mountain at 7am on Sunday morning.

Mt. Washington was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  Everything I thought about snow and serenity was put to shame before I started on the Mt. Washington trail.  

Mt. Washington was the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.  

Although the fog was a little thick, the snow-covered trees created the perfect motivation for me to keep hiking up the steep trail.  

The trail was not packed as well as the trails I had been on the previous two days.  I followed the trail leader’s steps almost exactly as I made my way up.  

We made it to a large hut, about 1.5 miles from the summit.  That was when my hike leader told us we would not make it.  It was almost noon, and it would take us about 2 more hours to make it the rest of the way.  That means that we would not have had enough time to get back down the mountain before sunset.  It would have been unsafe.  

Going down the mountain was my favorite part of the trip.  This was my chance to fully enjoy the environment around me.  I got to see the snow in it’s most true and pure form.  I got to slide on my butt down the steepest parts, which my knees and ankles really appreciated.  I now know that feeling of making a misstep and ending up waist deep in snow.

And I know the feeling of trying to get out of waist deep snow.

I also learned what it felt like to take hold of my fears and turn that energy into achieving something awesome.  

Maybe I didn’t make it to the top of Mount Washington, but I still accomplished something great.  I put myself out there to physically fail, and I succeeded.  

This may be the most challenging adventure I’d ever been on.  The hike was equally mentally challenging as it was physically.  

I made it safely to the bottom with the greatest feeling of accomplishment that I have ever felt.  

I left New Hampshire the very next day, after a wonderful night’s sleep.  

And no, I never saw a moose.

95 goals left......962 days left.

Winter Adventure.....Part 1

Last week.....around this time....I was climbing Mt. Washington.

A few months ago, I came up with this crazy idea.  I would try to do get out of my box and try new things.  I wanted to challenge myself, mentally and physically.  Something was telling me that I needed to prove to myself that I can do things that are completely foreign to me.

Looking around online, I saw that REI had travel options.  They have a ton of options too - anything from African Safaris to bike rides across Asia.  I figured that I should I should probably stay in America, especially since I just got back from Italy.  So, I was looking at the options in North America, and saw that they had winter adventures.  Then I saw the Mt. Washington climb, and I was sold.  I convinced a friend to go with me, and we booked our trip.  I had three months to prepare.

Preparation (logistical preparation at least) comes pretty naturally to me.  I am innately organized.  I love planning and packing.  I spent hundreds of dollars buying gear to keep me warm.  I weighed down Pack and took him on a few hikes with me.

Physical preparation, on the other hand, does not come quite so naturally.  That's all I have to say about that.

When the time finally came, my friend and I trekked up to New Hampshire to begin this crazy adventure.  We drove 11 hours to Vermont and toured the Ben and Jerry's factory.   Hey, if I'm going to drive all that way, I'm going to do some fun stuff too!

The next day, we drove over to New Hampshire (goal #13).  We took the extra long route to maximize the possibility of seeing a moose.

We checked into the (crappy) hotel room and promptly left to find something fun to do.  We went to the Visitor Center and the nice woman told us where we could go snowshoeing on a nearby trail, Georgiana Falls.

We strapped on snowshoes (goal #35) and explored this little trail.  It was beautiful and snowy.  This was the first time in my life that I had ever saw this type of snow.  Now, I'm from the Midwest, so I grew up with snow.  But this was different.  This snow was pure and serene.  And there was so much of it.  The trail was pretty well packed, but the surrounding snow was probably about 6 inches deep.  We were out for about 2 hours, and decided to head back when we realized that we had no idea where we were....or how much longer the trail ran.  

After our snowshoeing trek, we had dinner and went back to the hotel to get ready for the next day.  We would meet our guides and group.

Anxiety was setting in pretty well by this point.  I couldn't believe that I was there, or that I had traveled all this way.  I was nervous that I couldn't do it, even after buying all the gear, taking time off work, and packing so well.  I hadn't slept well in days either.  I didn't know what to expect, which is always difficult.

I went to bed.  I didn't sleep.  I simply waited for alarm to ring.