We have a saying in our family – “Pretend you’re an Oregon Trail pioneer woman.” Ok, maybe it’s not as much of a saying, as a mantra. I’ll be the first to admit it; I’m not a big outdoors, roughing-it kind of girl. But as my mom will remind my sister and me, as bad as we think things are, it could be worse. She will say, “Imagine how hard it was to survive back then. If they can do it, we can. We can be pioneer women too.”
As 2009 came to a close last week, I had my hardest pioneer woman experience ever, and, poetically I suppose, it involved an epic journey across great lands and through the elements just trying to make it home. [click here to read the entire harrowing tale of survival and perseverance]
After the whole ordeal, I never thought I would be so thankful to be saying goodbye and good riddance to 2009 and everything that came with it. But time, warmth and food have given me a different perspective. Snowpocalypse, as they are calling it, pushed me beyond what I was comfortable with or had ever experienced. It was full of first times – driving over sheets of ice, putting chains on, pushing cars in the snow, praying to any and all gods just to grab pavement. Many lessons were learned.
And that is what I hope 2010 brings for me. I’m not in the university bubble anymore. It’s not as easy to take chances and to make mistakes, but I realized that if you hide from these experiences for too long, they have a way of sneaking up on you.
