dirtbag

Once upon a time, there lived a princess who married her perfect prince. Although the princess didn’t believe in happily ever after, she did believe she found the closest thing to it.

​Sadly, one day, the prince left unexpectedly, and in a month’s time the princess would lose her husband, her dog, her cat and her life as she knew it, thus beginning the darkest period of her life. Without much hope for herself or belief in who she was, the princess did the only thing she knew how to do best. She went to the rocks. And she climbed, and fell, and failed, over and over again. 

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Not too far into her new life, she found photos of her six-year-old self in Yosemite National Park and realized that while she felt like she could not survive without the prince, there was another dream, a bigger dream that had been with her all along. So the princess traded her castle for a pumpkin, one with four wheels and that could hold a bed and food and water.

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She traded her name, “princess,” for one much more suitable for her. She would now be known as a “dirtbag.” In three weeks time, this aspiring dirtbag will leave for Colorado to begin a new chapter. One filled with climbing, adventure, trails (after covid, of course) and that is greatly focused on healing and growth. Much like the heroines in the Miyazaki films she loves, “she’ll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a savior. Any woman (even herself) is just as capable of being a hero as any man.”

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