When I told my best friend that I was going to quit my legal career on Wall Street and spend a year camping and exploring the American West, she looked at me in shock and said, “Are you joking?”
Her reaction was not surprising. I never truly confessed to her—nor to myself—how much I longed for a life that was completely different from what I was living at that time.
At that time, we were both 34 years old. Throughout the 16 years of friendship that preceded it, our lives had always gone hand in hand: we studied business in college and then pursued high-intensity careers in cities on the East Coast. We had witnessed each other's failed romances and life’s ups and downs, but this time was different. This was a major turning point. When she looked at me with a face full of confusion, I wasn’t even sure if our friendship could withstand this change.
For many years, our lives have remained in sync.
I met Erin during our freshman year in college. At that time, we were both recipients of scholarships and members of the highly competitive first-tier league track and field team. Although those four years were not particularly conducive to being honest or vulnerable, they connected us in a profound way.
After graduation, we turned our attention and enthusiasm towards our corporate careers, supporting each other in these often stressful pursuits. Since our financial situations were very similar, we traveled together, went out to eat, and also enjoyed spa treatments together. More importantly, during those years, Erin became my backbone. When the man I thought I would marry left me, I would call her in the middle of the night; and whenever life was disappointing, she always managed to make me laugh harder than anyone else.
I'm worried that taking different paths will end our friendship.
When I decided to resign and leap into a completely different kind of life, there was more than just Erin who questioned this choice, but she was the most important one to me. Moreover, since I can now only rely on my savings to live, I can no longer afford those activities that used to occupy a central place in our friendship.
When Erin came to help me clean up my apartment, he still expressed doubts about my idea of “living without a plan for a while.” As we said goodbye, I thought of that infinite symbol, and I wasn’t sure whether we would be able to meet again at that central point.
To my surprise, she supported me in an unexpected way.
In the early days of our trip, Erin started asking me how things were going, and I began to share the details with her. On my first night of camping alone, I sent her a photo of the tent overlooking the Colorado River and confessed how scared I was, because although I had planned to spend a year camping, I had never done it alone before that night. She responded to me with the same enthusiasm and encouragement as she had in the past years.
In the following months, such conversations continued without end. During one hiking run, due to poor planning, I was forced to spend the night in a stranger's car. I called her to share this experience with her, and we laughed together at my mistake. On her birthday, I sent her a celebratory photo from a mountain peak at an altitude of 14,000 feet. It's not that she still had no doubts about what I was doing; rather, at some point, she let go of her hesitations and began to try to understand my motives.
Later, she suggested that she wanted to go on a backpacking hike with me – something she had never done before. We stayed at Superstition Mountains in Arizona for two nights, and there was a stark contrast between my composure in the wilderness and her caution. Although we had a lot of fun, when we were looking for a source of water, she questioned whether I knew how to read a map. I’m sure I’ll never do such things with her again.
Of course, later on I went with her again and again. Because through all these frictions, one fact became clear: we have always been very different people, and now, we just live with those differences. It is this challenge, and her willingness to embrace it, that brings us closer than ever before.
Over the years, as I have become more honest with who I am, so has she become more honest with who she is. Ten years have passed, and our lives still seem very different, but Erin remains my pillar.
