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The Breakup: I Don’t Want to Try This Hard Any More
Dirty, sweaty, and hot, I slid off my backpack and gazed out at the circle of granite peaks surrounding me in the Bob Marshall’s Half Moon Park. I will live here someday, I thought to myself. Someday, soon.
Four years later, I drove into Missoula in sunny September, the entirety of my worldly goods packed into the sixteen-foot rectangular box behind my head. After a sound sleep in my new home, I rode my bike to the Farmer’s Market, serendipitously met my forever friend, and breathed out a sigh of relief: Montana was going to work out just fine.
That first lovely September, I swam in Spoon Lake, kayaked the North Fork, climbed Ch-paa-qn Peak, and watched the bison roundup as sunrise lit the Lord-of-the-Rings fortress of the Mission range. The following spring, I hiked winter-weary trails searching for the elusive Pasque flower and for Montana’s shining symbol, the bitterroot.
In the heat of summer, I submerged my entire body in the Bitterroot River while wearing my favorite blue summer dress, simply because the day was so warm and the water so cool. When another summer arrived, my forever friend flew north. I spent a lot of time along the…
