Thereâs no wind today, and I have enough scraps for breakfast from a deer I felled last night.
I smoked a lot of it in a makeshift canopy I stuck over the fire through the night and let some dry out in the sun before it went down, so I donât need to stop for food today at all.
I can eat semi-cured or dried meats and push on. I also packed enough raw in my backpack for later. Now that I have a goal in mind and a new plan, Iâm raring to go.
The sense of feeling lost is momentarily quiet, and itâs a good feeling to have some respite in a small way.
The last tree I climbed, I saw a sizable distant mountain, not too dissimilar to ours, with a base dipped in the luscious green of the forest kissing its feet. I want to get there.
The trek looks a couple of days long, and in the woods as dense as this, I can engage hyper-speed with no fear of being seen.
There are no people, but the trees are so closely grown together that I may have to take detours into clearings to push through some of them.
Itâs proper wildland, not artificial and spaced out, and barely grazed by human intervention. Perfect for a lone wolf who wants to disappear into oblivion, never to be found again.
The mountain is the goal, and I hope that I can find a more permanent dwelling so I can start improving my home comforts when I get there.
I can be crafty with my hands, and if I find a cave big enough, I might be able to fashion some necessary things, like clay pots and maybe a chair from woven branches.
The more I can make my final landing spot seem half-civilized, perhaps the more certain of my future I will be.
Eventually, the homesickness will stop, and maybe one day, my thinking about ~him~ will go away too.
I canât deny Iâve still cried in low points and woken with him in my dreams, his touch on my skin, his lips on mine, his voice bringing me home.
Those have been the most challenging points, where I woke with longing to find he wasnât here, and reality slapped me in the face.
The sound of him still lingered in my mind and weakened me to want to reach out and link him, just to hear that sultry, husky, reassuring tone for real. It would break me for a moment.
Iâd cry it out and then feel numb for a while until the sun came up and reminded me why I should only hate him and never give him more than my anger.
I need to stay strong for myself. So far, Iâve kept the strength to not open the link and just touch him, even for a tiny fraction of a second.
I donât want to feel him in my head because if I do, my strength will evaporate, and I might give up entirely at a time Iâm just starting to come into my own.
I wonât lie and say I donât miss a real home, beds, carpets, and all the luxuries of the valley, but Iâm free.
I can go where I want, answer to no one, and itâs not like I have any desire to find a mate now, so thereâs no point in being around wolves.
My heart will always belong to him, even if heâs denied it and moved on. I would rather be alone than lie about my love for someone new just to have company.
Iâm resigned to the fact Iâll love him until I pass, no matter how many years that takes.
I quickly get up and pull my now-dry clothes off the rocks. I washed everything yesterday and slept naked in my fur bed, hoping to feel less grubby today, less scraping by, and more pulled together.
I washed myself from head to foot with the last of my soap and braided my hair into two plaits hanging down each side of my head to let it dry.
I have felt neglected and feral lately and need to remind myself that Iâm still part human and that the little things, like grooming, can make a world of difference.
I feel somehow determined and cleaner, like I have an actual purpose.
I pack my things, roll up my furs, and eat some of my dried meats as I encase them in large leaves to get ready to go.
After binding and tying everything in and to the backpack with vines I corded yesterday, I drag it all on my back, bouncing the weight up to adjust the straps and balancing it.
My sneakers are getting scuffed and worn.
Soon, I might have to find tree sap and do minor repairs to make them last or venture toward the human spots to use what money I have for something longer-lasting.
I didnât expect them to give out quite so soon, and in hindsight, I should have brought boots and not these when going off-grid. Thatâs the only downside to all this.
The human part has specific requirements that nature wonât provide unless I get creative. Shoes are not in my skill set, and Iâm not sure my human feet could handle the forest floor debris without them.
I would have to turn to go any distance and probably pull a thousand pieces of grit and broken wood out of my feet every night.
I fill my belly with meat and water and head off, leaving no trace behind me after scattering the remnants of my fire and burying the ash.
Itâs something my father always ingrained in me that when you leave a camp, it should bear no evidence you were ever there.
We should respect nature and leave it as untouched as we found it.
Iâm always careful to bury or burn the carcasses of my kills, clean the blood from where I skin them or eat them, and keep everything neat and clean. Itâs served me well so far.
Mentally, I feel lighter, not that Iâve forgotten any of my previous wants and desires or heartbreak, but Iâm getting better at handling it.
My dreams vary but always around the same things, and I still dream of Sierra most nights.
I thought it would have faded into something new by now, but sheâs persistent, and since I started turning east, itâs almost like the dream has become more prominent, the vision stronger.
Last night, I swore I could smell a scent in the white space around me, smell her, and it had a familiarity I couldnât quite put my finger on.
It was like a long-lost distant memory, always out of reach, and it gave me a headache trying to claw for it when I woke up in the night at the utterance of her same old two-word command.
If I didnât know better, I would think I know how she smells, but maybe itâs from distant memory when she used to read at the library when I was tiny, and I somehow retained it.
And her voice, like Coltonâs yet not, lingers hauntingly, so equally known to me.
âSave us.â
Itâs only ever that, nothing else.
The weirdest thing Iâve noticed about the dream is that Iâm not as I am now in it. Iâve seen my hands while in the white room when she clasps them in hers.
My hands are that of a child, small, delicate, dwarfed in hers, which makes even less sense to me.
I guess, though, just like the almost forgotten sense of familiar smell and sound, maybe the dream is also a nod that all this comes at me from way back when I was a child, and Iâve forgotten.
Iâve been confused into a senseless moment, reminding me I did once upon a time know who she was. I have given up trying to dissect the meaning, though, as there doesnât seem to be one.