"Monster"

I recently finished reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

There were times while reading the book that my heart would swell and tears would trickle down my cheeks.
I responded that way mostly when along Cheryl's journey, a through-hike on the PCT, she met up with fellow backpackers.
I've experienced that immediate connectedness with backpackers along the trail.
It's almost like we are kin, even though we'd never met previously...at least in this life.

I think of the man who gave my son and I his car keys.
He was heading north on the AT and we were heading south toward Damascus, Virginia, where he had left his locked car with containers of fuel inside where temperatures would get hot as the metal enclosure would sit day after day for a week baking in the sun.
The fellow-backpacker-car-owner was concerned the fuel canisters may get too hot and explode or something.

After his group of six and my son and I had spent the night together at a shelter on the AT, he asked Son and I the next morning if we could retrieve the canisters of fuel out of his car when we arrived at Damascus and give them along with his car keys to the outdoor supply store in Damascus. He'd then pick up his keys and the canisters in about a week when he got off the trail. We had just met this man, a lawyer and activist for handicapped kids, 10 to 12 hours earlier and here he was giving us the keys to his car. Kinship.

Cheryl named her backpack "Monster."
At first that is how Monster felt, a giant monster on Cheryl's back, a heavy load.
Monster never became light, but did become lighter as Cherly learned she didn't need as much as she was carrying.
Monster became Cheryl's sole companion on the trail.
Monster and Cheryl were one.
Monster, though heavy, contained all Cheryl physically needed to survive.
Monster became like her friend.

Back in January before I knew anything about Monster or Cheryl's journey, I began calling my business "a monster," and not in a good way. It had become overwhelming. Growth had happened too fast. The folks who worked for me were making life changes that would send them to another state and another city and they'd be unable to work for me. That meant I had to find and hire new people. In January I felt I had become my business; not unusual for any small business owner. But I am not my business. My business is just one aspect of my life.

As I read "Wild" my struggles with business ownership and responsibility kept popping into my mind. I felt more than thought about the parallels between my business and Cheryl's unprepared journey into the "Wild." And she was unprepared, but she made it and learned as she journeyed through.

It was somewhere toward the last half of the book that it dawned on me that her pack Monster and my business, the monster, had been given the same description - "monster." Her Monster had become her friend, a friend she wouldn't carry forever but rather for that part of her journey.

My monster could become my friend too. Even though it feels heavy at times, it helps provide material needs. I've endeavored to make the responsibilities smoother for me. Sometimes I succeed; sometimes I don't. But I still attend to it daily and it attends to me.

My monster will be changing over the next 6 months. It's bittersweet, having to retire my monster as I have known it. Yet, when that part of the journey is done, I'll bid my monster farewell. Until then, I pick up my monster each day knowing we are one.

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