The Time We Got Engaged, Then Wandered The Sandy Dunes (or how not to panic when you think you’re lost)

First, some exciting news. We got engaged! He proposed at Little Sable Lighthouse on Lake Michigan, and it was super romantic and sweet. I won’t bore you with the details (but if you insist, I’ll have the story up soon on our wedding website: http://www.theknot.com/wedding/Tarah-and-Damon; this isn’t a “forever” website so if you’re an alien in the future reading the historical archives of TarahLand…the link probably won’t work. Or, let’s say, you’re trying to click on it in the year 2016 or something. Sorry. Guess you’ll never know.).

ANYWAY…

The next day we went for what we thought would be an easy stroll through the sand dunes near Silver Lake to Lake Michigan. Our 2-mile hike turned into a 5+mile trek through what can only be described as “every scene in the movies where they have to show an alien landscape on some desert planet.”

After about an hour of being what I call “lost” and Damon calls “just not knowing exactly how to get back,” I felt a little panic rising. I hadn’t eaten enough to properly fuel for this level of exertion. We didn’t have any water. Luckily, it wasn’t super hot, but it was sunny.

I started to get that deep, bone-tired feeling you get when you’ve just expended more calories than you eat in three days all at once. I started thinking about what I would look like when someone finally came across my sun-burnt, dehydrated body with its hands wrapped firmly around Damon’s neck (I kid. I kid.).

Then, it hit me. We can totally get through this. There’s no reason to panic. We knew the general direction we needed to go, and the rest was just a matter of not giving in to the tiredness and pain. And, boy! Have I done THAT before!

And that is what chronic pain can teach us. That we don’t have to give in to the feeling of panic or desperation. That just by being aware and mindful of how we’re feeling, we can keep moving forward.

You’ve probably figured it out by now, but we made it out of those dunes. And, honestly, we weren’t in there for a super long time. And we may or may not have trespassed on someone’s land to get out. And we may or may not have climbed over their barbed wire fence to reach the parking lot. I can’t tell you for sure because I was dreaming about chocolate, ice cream, and fried fish at that point.