A Quick Realization

So I mark my three-week anniversary today. Three weeks of bumbling around Grand Canyon National Park wondering what it is exactly my boss wants from me. It's hard to tell, seeing as how we meet maybe once a week. I'm done with background, for the most part, because it's really all I've done since I got here. Where's my adventure? My trips into the canyon? River running?

This office is getting stuffy. I really need some direction here.

Obviously, I'm taking tomorrow morning off to "celebrate" my birthday. Irony: I hike every year on my birthday (except my 21st, where the hiking was home from the bars), and that's exactly what I'm going to do this year. I have a conference call tomorrow at noon, though, so it's not like I can go anywhere else. I'm planning a hike about 1,140 vertical feet down, 3 miles, probably about 2 hours total. My plan is to go down to Cedar Ridge on South Kaibab--considered the most scenic route in the Canyon, and highly ranked in the US as well.

I think I woke up this morning realizing that, yes, in fact, this is just an internship. Maybe I don't need to be so involved like I've been. Instead of working all the time, I want to go out and experience the canyon. Five months from now when I'm out on my ass, I want to say I really lived the Grand Canyon.

It's funny because my life has completely changed since I've been here. When you enter my home, there's a kilo of Vitalyte electrolyte mix on the counter by my four water bottles. You have to shove my hiking poles out of the way where they sit next to my two packs: one a Kelty pack for overnighters over a few nights, the other an Osprey for my day hikes into the canyon (the hydration system I put in it separately, like a camelback). The Osprey was my birthday gift from my parents--whether they knew it or not. I have my sunglasses always sitting in my helmet, because I bike to and from work (and home and back at lunch). There's usually a trail of dirt and dust from my Merrell hiking shoes.

Who is this girl? The one too lazy to walk up the hill to class when she only lived at 1,000 feet. And here at 7,000 all of a sudden, biking and hiking are ok. But I think this is always what I really wanted. I just realized it a little too late. Journalism was great, but I like to write without the hard-news format being imposed. I could see myself freelancing, but my heart has always been outside of the cubicle walls.

A life lived in an office? What is that?