My three decades alone, basking in the company of a mountain

«As one disappointed suitor said: ‘What are you going to do, die on this hill?’ Perhaps. If I do, it will be with full knowledge that the primary relationship in my life has not been with a person, but with a mountain.

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Over the years, I’ve come to view my relationship with this mountain as a marriage, and like a marriage, sometimes I want a divorce. Self-reliance can be emotionally and physically draining. It’s always me paying the bills, replacing ageing infrastructure, chaining up the truck tyres, stocking the woodpile, and ploughing the heavy, back-breaking late-fall and early spring snows. Five years ago, I fell over inside the cabin, and as I lay on my back on the floor, literally seeing stars in the darkness, I grasped in full the vulnerability that comes with solitude. At night, the darkened windows reflect my shadowy self as I move from room to room in the silent cabin. Twenty or so years ago, I joked that my goal in life was to haunt the mountain after I die. I no longer make that joke.»

https://psyche.co/ideas/my-three-decades-alone-basking-in-the-company-of-a-mountain