COLUMN: Everything will be alright in a tent


opinion

Everything makes a little more sense when I'm laying in a tent under the stars. 

It was a week before I turned 18 that I decided my birthday should be spent with close friends and a couple of tents. I was heading off to college in two weeks and I wanted to relieve some stress before entering the most important years of my life. 

The day before I entered adulthood, I packed a car with my sister and two close friends and immersed myself in the natural beauty of northern Michigan.

We had spent most of the day hiking through the trails of Manistee, in search of perfect ground to set up camp. It was three hours into the hike when we finally found a spot overlooking the river. 

We ate a gourmet dinner of canned beans and ramen noodles as a roaring fire kept us company while the sun set. Our shadows cast over the tents as we started to reminisce about our senior year of high school and the countless memories we made over the summer. 

I crawled into the tent occupied by my sister, Hawra, and  my friend, Katie, and fell asleep within a few hours.

I woke up at 3 a.m. and decided to remove the tent's cover. I stared into the star cluttered sky hoping to find an answer to a question I had been avoiding all day. 

"So what now?" 

I had turned 18 but I felt the same. Where was the wisdom I was promised once I entered adulthood? 

Staring aimlessly at the painted array of lights above me, I realized I was pretty happy without an answer. I had escaped to the woods to find the courage to face college and adulthood.

I chased the whispers that I'd hoped would guide me through the worries and concerns of leaving home and my friends. 

But the stars painted me a different answer that night. They told me adulthood isn't something that clicks your first couple of weeks of college or after 18 years of life. 

The tall trees that circled me showed me that only time grants experience and wisdom. The smell of the earth and the bristle breeze washed away my worries and I fell back to sleep. 

Now two years into college, I find sanity in moments I get to spend outside in the wilderness. That moment seems to find me alone in the woods, letting me know that the world is large and full of opportunities. 

Everything will always end up alright. I just needed to spend the night in a tent to realize that.

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