I once hiked a trail I hadn’t finished years earlier, one I’d turned around on halfway because it felt like too much. Even though Zina was with me, I was feeling uncertain and unsteady.

And honestly? It wasn’t the view that hit me. It was what I remembered: the first time I tried it, I was in survival mode. I couldn’t breathe. Not because I was out of shape, but because life was caving in on me. Something all too familiar in my light is flight or fight for survival, and something within me on that day, simply said it was time to turn around.

Venturing out again on the same trail to finally finish it, well, the trail hadn’t changed. I had.

It reminded me that unfinished business isn’t a failure, it’s a snapshot of who we were at the time. Coming back isn’t weakness. It’s growth. And I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit for all that we start, leave, and pick up again to finally see it through.

Nature doesn’t care if you didn’t “finish” the first time. The trail will wait. And when you return, you bring with you all the strength you didn’t know you had back then.