We vacation in Maine. My husband’s family has a cabin there and it’s been part of our story for a long time. Showing up in the powerful wilderness and letting it fill my spirit is a routine I hope to never lose. Maine is amazing and weird in the best way. And there are parts of Maine that are so remote that you kiss the ground when you find a rocky logging trail that looks like a hiking trail in North Texas because you MIGHT find a tiny town with a gas station before your tank hits 0.

I love it but not quite as much when I’m alone.

This year my husband and our older two kids did a backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail. It was hard. Knife-edge climbs, longer-than-expected trails, and my younger son was probably just a little too young to be able to handle it, but he was showing up as a rockstar and he did it. When they hit peaks, they’d send me pictures (proof of life!) and from the last peak, I got a call asking me to bring the Switch when I picked them up. My husband wanted to give our son a win at the end. He’d earned it, but it had hit his breaking point.

From Adventure to Why Did I Do This?

The pickup point changed. They didn’t make their original time and we had to route around highways on Penobscot land that were closed. Because in this part of Maine, sometimes a “highway” is a dirt road through someone’s private property. I got in our giant van with my trusty yoga pants, reliable Tevas, a Google Maps route, and my two younger kids and set off, knowing there were about six miles of unpaved roads. And then turned around because I forgot my wallet and figured since we were stopping I should probably grab water bottles for the kids. It was a sign about how this trip was going to keep showing up. This was supposed to be a 90-minute drive.

Things were fine for the first 45 minutes. Then came the turnoff.

The road narrowed. Rocky. Confusing turns. It started to look like a dirt bike trail. But Google kept insisting. Small branches scraped the van. Holes opened up. A fallen log. No cell service. I realized this was a really, really bad idea.

I tried to call my husband to calm down. My body and I talk now and I knew it was entering the very not ok place. No service. My kid asked, “Are we stuck?” My brain told me the answer was probably yes. I didn’t say it out loud.

The Me Who Showed Up

Younger me would’ve cried and demanded someone else do the hard thing. But this wasn’t younger me. I’ve done hard things. And I had two kids with me, two kids on a mountain depending on me, and a husband counting on me to show up.

There was no going forward. No use doubling down on a bad plan. I had already made that bad call twice on this forsaken raccoon trail, not a third time.

So I backed out – a half mile – getting out to check the road, inching around rocks and roots, K-turning a 12-passenger van through a forest trail. I did about 30 K-turns to get around that fallen log. It wasn’t the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done, but it was close. If you’re on the fence about a Ford Transit, that thing drives like a good pickup truck. I’ll never say bad things about it again.

I remembered while close to hyperventilating mid backup giving birth to my third son and thinking, “I can’t do this.” The nurse didn’t think I could either. But there was no one else to birth that child. I remember the doctor holding on, not looking me in the eyes because she was checking that baby and saying “you have to do this.” I kept going because in that moment it hit me like a lightning bolt. There was no one else to birth that baby. No one else was going to get me out of this trail. So I kept going and shut up that voice that said “you can’t.” And I kept going here.

Crisis Averted – But It’s Still Not All Right

Eventually, GPS reconnected. I found another road. Tried again. Then again. More trails, more dead ends showing up. I remembered a workaround I’d read about. Saw the sign. Ignored it at first because Google said not to take it. It only takes two paper bags for me to get lost in, I needed the navigation help. Then found a literal pond on the pitted, rocky road, ten feet across, turned around and took the sign road. No better plan. Still no service. I was three hours late. It was getting dark. The kind of dark only the deep country reveals to you. I started counting emergency blankets and water bottles.

Because that’s what moms like me do. We don’t pretend to be happy when we’re panicking. But we don’t spread panic to people who can’t help either. I kept my voice calm. Turned around again. Took the new road. 13 miles to the next junction. 15 miles per hour in the dark in that van lumbering, bumping. Waiting for the crash down that the blinking tire pressure warning told me was going to be a very bad time. It looked better until it didn’t. Rocky, hard, but better. When it got rougher there were no options. So I kept driving murmuring to myself to relax my death grip on the wheel.

I was lost lost for three hours. I saw one person the whole time, sleeping in their car. So many times Google showed a junction … into a field? Is the van supposed to leap over the tree stand? Eight miles into the new road, it smoothed out. Pavement finally showing up. I told my son who had thrown up 15 minutes earlier, “Look, an actual road.” He threw up his hands and yelled, “Hallelujah!”

Showing Up on Paved(ish) Roads

We were almost there. My heart was shaking and I could feel my breath catch in my throat, but my hands and my voice were steady.

And I found them. My husband and our boys were walking up the gravel path, headlamps blazing. They knew something had gone wrong. My husband had talked to them about self-rescue, how to keep moving, how I would find them. And I did.

I may be late, lost, and a little dirty but dammit, I show up for my people.

Fifteen minutes later, the tire blew. Because of course it did. But we were together. The sky was pitch black and filled with stars. We were 20 minutes from the nearest town, but it felt like a different world.

I didn’t change the tire, my husband did. There was me hovering, offering to hold a light, to watch for cars, refusing to go back in the van. I just didn’t want to leave him alone. We got back in, got home by midnight, and I pulled out leftovers for everyone.

The whole time I kept thinking: “No one else can do this but you.” And the truth is, that doesn’t guarantee you can do it. Grit and positive thinking won’t always beat a moose in the dark or a busted axle.

But this time, I did it.

The Aftermath of Showing Up

I thought that moment would become a traumatic memory. Something that would intrude, make me curl my toes, make me feel like a failure.

But it didn’t traumatize me.

I hate that I had to do it. But it showed me who I’ve become. I’m strong enough to hit the skids and find a way out. Smart enough to stop doubling down on bad plans. Brave enough to act when the moment demands it. And I don’t rely on other people to do my emotional heavy lifting.

I’m proud of me.

And I’m proud that I showed my kids I show up for them. Not perfectly. Not the way I planned. But fully. I learned a lot of this from my husband. I’m glad I got to give back some of what he taught me when we were younger.

Because I may be bad with directions, but I never get lost when it comes to showing up for who I love.

This is what I know now and what I bring to my work as a therapist.

Sometimes the road looks wrong. It’s rocky, unpaved, and you’re not sure your wheels, or your nervous system, can take much more. You might think you’ve made the wrong choice, or missed the easier way home. Maybe you’re afraid you’ll get stuck here, overwhelmed and alone.

But the truth is, we’re allowed to course correct. We’re allowed to pause, ask for directions, and find a new path that takes us somewhere safer. And even if the road was hard, it doesn’t mean you failed. It might mean you’re braver than you ever realized.

In my therapy practice, I help clients who are strong on the outside but anxious, overextended, or burnt out on the inside. People who are trying so hard to hold it all together that they forget they don’t have to do it all alone. Therapy with me isn’t about perfect plans or tidy roads. It’s about getting real, being seen, and finding your way back to yourself even when the map has let you down.

Hear me now, you’re not too much. You’re not broken. You’re just navigating terrain no one warned you about. I’m here to help you chart a path that’s actually yours. If therapy takes us off-road, that’s fine. I’ve driven through worse with a car full of kids and half a granola bar. I don’t rattle easy.