Onward: The Story Behind the Name

The name “Onward” has a personal double meaning for me. All my life, I have loved hiking and exploring nature and have found every excuse I could to be outdoors. Now, with my plan to thru hike the Pacific Crest Trail, this word has become a sort of mantra. I must continue moving onward on the trail and complete this journey. The Pacific Crest Trail or PCT is a 2,650 mile long trail that spans from the boarder of Canada to the boarder of Mexico. Starting in March of 2022, I will be backpacking northbound in hopes of completing the trail by Sept of that same year.

In the same way I am moving forward with this adventure, I am moving forward with my life. Since I was very young, I have dealt with mental illnesses and it has been a struggle every single day. A common symbol in the mental health community is a semicolon. In literature, a semicolon is used in a sentence that the author could have ended but chose to continue. In a symbolic sense, you are the author and the sentence you are writing is your life and your story is moving onward. There were several times growing up when I felt like I wasn’t strong enough to keep going and that life was too hard to handle. Now that I have been in therapy and working on bettering myself for about a decade, I feel strong, confident, worthy, and capable of handling different challenges that come my way. I have noticed a HUGE change in who I’ve become (of course I still deal with hard times but the important part is that I have tools and an AMAZING support system to help me through) and I cannot wait to start this wild trail feeling better than I have in years.