What you find on the trail....

As I sit behind those wagging tails and hard pulling dogs, I have a lot of time to think. I think of what was, what could have been, what I want, what I need, what THE HECK WAS THAT! Yesterday it was a beautiful white-tailed doe hurdling my swing dogs (dogs right behind my leaders) while we were moving down the trail!

It seems like whenever I am distracted by my life while I’m training the dogs something happens and brings me back to reality. It’s funny how that happens! I do get distracted I do get lost, but the good part is I usually come back found and a little more centered. Being in the woods is my happy place; it’s a place that I heal what hurts me. I look at the trees and how they are changing in the fall, then what they look like in the winter and even a spring time run. I think about the relationships that I have and those that I want. What do I want in my relationships? In the last 3 years I have had so many changes in my life, in my entire thought process of who I am and the person that I am. I think about this while I’m out on the trails all the time.

In my former life, which would consist of the time I spent before I started mushing, I was very busy! I had a commute, I had a grown-up job, I had a family, and I lived in the suburbs and was seemingly happy. During all of this I knew that something was missing. I couldn’t do enough for other people along with myself. I was very conflicted on what I wanted out of life. I struggled with depression and anxiety something of which I never wish on anyone. It was horrible but what I’ve come to realize that it was me that was missing. I’m slowing finding me every time I head out on that trail with my dogs.

That sounds so corny and cliché! But sometimes an immediate life change is what you need in order to really find you and what makes you happy. I left a husband and a secure lifestyle with a very well-paying job but yet I don’t regret decisions that I have made. They have made me who I am and have gotten me where I am today. Life directed me here to where I am right now. The biggest lesson that I am still learning is that I can’t control anything! I can’t control the weather and I can’t control my life! The only thing I can do is to keep moving forward based on my decisions and their outcomes. I make decisions that I think are the best for me and in that process the decisions that I think are best for my dogs. I’m sure I have disappointed people but I can’t make everyone happy. I only have control over my happiness. I make decisions that are in my best interest and go with it. Sometimes I feel a little bad that I didn’t do what someone wanted me to but at the same time it was not the decision that was in my best interest at the time.

This transition is how I came up with my kennel name of Dream Big. Because if you have a dream you might as well dream big and accomplish what you want to! It may take a while because we all know that things don’t happen overnight, but being patient and moving forward will get you there eventually!