At the end of reading week, I decided to go away for a bit. I needed a break from my everyday life. With everything going on around the world and the stress of midterms weighing down on me, I really knew that mentally I just needed to leave it all behind. So, along with my parents, I booked a cabin in Northern Ontario for the weekend and drove way up north, leaving all my technology at home. No connection to the outside world, no emails from school and no notifications of the latest news appearing. Although in the back of my mind I knew all the things stressing me out still existed, without having everything pushed in my face 24/7 I could exist peacefully without looking at it. Don’t get me wrong, I care deeply about everything going on, but when there is so much all at once I just need to not think about it for a while to help me process everything.
It was wonderful and totally peaceful. I drove through Algonquin Park on my first day and walked around on some of the smaller trails there. While I walked, it was snowing a little, but it was still really nice out. I got to see some animals, including a pine marten, an adorable animal I never even knew existed. If you’re in need of a mood booster, I would definitely recommend looking up a picture of one. Later on, once it got dark out, I was suddenly in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. It was freezing outside and there was a fairly intense blizzard going on. I spent the night watching the snow and took a hot bath, it was total bliss. The next day, I snowmobiled out, and in the middle of the forest, I went hiking again but this time I was way further out, in the middle of nowhere. I went to see the relatively untouched forest and all the freshly fallen snow.
I think of this as sort of a grounding experience, as I was far away from people and extremely far away from the consistent busyness of the cities I’m always stuck in. Although I was only a few hours north, being out in those woods made me feel almost disconnected from the rest of the world. It’s like, as long as I’m out there, the world is standing still. Being out in a big forest, surrounded by trees 100 years older than me and 50 feet taller, I felt so small. It was like the trees humbled me a bit, reminding me that I am just one tiny part of a massive and complicated world.
The whole weekend felt like a reset. It was a get back to nature, escape the world type of weekend and I really needed it. I have found that disconnecting from everything and getting away from my life really grounded me, calmed me and gave me the chance to get “me” back. If you have been feeling overwhelmed or need to not do life for a bit, leave your stressors and social media at home and go to the middle of nowhere. Take in nature and spend some time away from everything. For me, this whole experience was really beneficial.