Writer’s note: It has been about a year since I started in the hope of putting out content regularly, unfortunately life had a different plan.  Over the next few weeks and months I hope to catch everyone up on the journey that has taken place and we can finally get rolling on our adventure. 

I had wanted to start putting out my own content a couple years ago, but a mixture of dragging my feet and wanting every step and publication to be perfect, I had not put anything out for mass consumption.  Finally a year ago, in a mixture of getting off my ass and distracting myself to clear my head while sitting in the hospital room with my mother as she was going through cancer treatment, I began pounding my words into the keyboard.  My mother has always been the biggest supporter of my journey through life, not always making the best choices she straightened me out but was always there to be the wind at my back to keep me moving towards my goals, even when I didn’t know where I was going myself.

In college my roommate had a quote that said, “not all wonderers are lost.”  It always had me thinking of what it meant to me, why would you wonder somewhere with no destination.  It was a few years later that I realized my favorite places were the ones where I didn’t know all of my surroundings and had no deadline or finish line to reach.  Walking through the woods, checking for deer sign, shed antlers, wild mushrooms, or just running around with friends and buddies.  The woods or corn fields of the Midwest are the places that I feel most in touch with myself.  That doesn’t mean I am a loaner or anti-social, I enjoy being around people and meeting new people and engaging.  My MBTI is ENFP, I’m a laid back, go with the flow kind of outdoorsman, I just really enjoy being in the unknown and finding those little miracles that life presents along the way.

So when my mother’s stage 4 cancer progressively wore her down I would find my escape by going to the woods that a small group of us hunt, scouting, working, hanging stands, just spending time with nothing on my mind but the beauty in front of me.  Of course I was able to do that because my amazing father and sister who were also there for my mom, and my fiance who understood and is always supportive.

Engaged in June, at a Tennessee winery, we started planning immediately, not knowing exactly what the future held for us and our family we decided on a spring wedding.  Both our families were excited and wanted to help anyway we needed.  Venues were picked, tastings for food and cakes took place, songs started being picked as we hired our DJ.  I was in charge of picking our first dance song, her dad picked the father-daughter song, and I told my mom she should pick the mother-son song.  Unfortunately in late August my mother lost her long battle with cancer just a week before my family also lost my grandmother.  At the same time I took a promotion at work, and failed to take time to put out content even though I was still finding myself adventuring into the wild on the weekends.

That October, on the 3rd weekend of the season, with a buddy in the same tree trying to film my hunt, I was able to take the biggest buck I have gotten with a bow.  I will save the story of that hunt for another time but it was an exciting time.

Since then I’ve been pondering what kind of content and story telling I want to present but I think I’m slowly molding this into something I can be proud of.  If I have learned anything over the last year its that you don’t have to feel stuck in a place because you feel that you have to make other people happy and that life is too short not to chase your ambitions.  I’m not saying it will be easy, but I will say it will be worth it.