The weight of the office felt like a physical shroud as I walked to my car, my shoulders hunched against the phantom echo of my boss’s voice after a toxic day. It had been one of those days where the air in the building felt thin, filled with impossible demands and the sharp, stinging realization that those I share a desk with are more interested in weaving half-truths than doing honest work. I watched them today, exchanging those hushed, sidelong glances and shifting blame like a deck of marked cards. For hours, I felt myself shrinking, my own story being rewritten by people who don’t even know my middle name.
When I finally stepped through my front door, I wanted to disappear into the upholstery of the sofa and let the darkness take over. But then I saw my Bordertraveller gear hanging by the door. In that moment, it didn’t look like mere clothing; it looked like a challenge. I realized that if I stayed still, the dishonesty of the day would settle into my bones and become part of me. I had to move. I had to cross the border from the person they tried to make me into, back to the person I actually am.
I changed into my activewear with a kind of frantic intensity, zipping up the jacket as if I were fastening a suit of armor. I headed for the hills behind the house, my pace fast and jagged at first, fueled by a simmering, righteous anger. I ran until my lungs burned and the cold evening air began to scrub the taste of the office from my throat. With every uphill stride, I imagined I was leaving the petty politics and the demanding emails in the valley below. The physical struggle was honest—the incline didn’t lie to me, and the wind didn’t have a hidden agenda. It was just me and the terrain, a dialogue of effort and resistance that slowly began to turn my fury into something steadier.
At the summit, I collapsed into a seat on a mossy outcrop and let my heart rate settle. I closed my eyes and practiced the meditation of the “internal border.” I visualised a line drawn in the dirt around my own soul, a boundary that my boss and my co-workers simply do not have the clearance to cross. I let the silence of the trees act as a filter, catching the noise of the day and letting only the truth of the present moment through. I am not my job title, and I am certainly not the version of me that exists in their whispers. I am the woman standing on this mountain, breathing deeply, alive and unbowed.
Now, I am back in the warmth of my living room, a mug of herbal tea steaming on the table next to my copy of Bordertraveller Stories. I opened it to a page about a journey through a high, lonely pass, and the words felt like a cool hand on a fevered brow. The stories in this book remind me that every hero faces betrayal and exhaustion, but those are just the chapters that make the resolution more profound. The intellectual inspiration of the text combined with the physical release of the run has stitched me back together. Tomorrow the office will still be there, and the people will still be small, but I have reclaimed my pen. I am the one writing this story, and I’ve decided that Thursday’s ending is going to be one of triumph.