Farewell
When I started Born Again Outdoors, I wanted to share my rediscovery of the outdoors with everyone. I found it exciting. But there have also been hangups, setbacks, and heartaches associated with it that I was never really prepared for. So, this will be my final article, and when my website subscription expires in two weeks, the website will go away too.
I put my heart and soul into this website, I really did. I spent every spare moment I had working on it in some way or another. But it was too much, and I’m not enjoying it anymore. In fact, as of late, I’ve noticed I am not enjoying much of anything anymore. Things that used to make me happy are now entirely joyless. I went elk hunting yesterday and didn’t enjoy even one moment of it. In fact, I can’t remember the last time doing anything made me happy, really. I’m exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and creatively. I just want to be left alone and live a quiet life.
A huge part of this that, in September of 2024, I moved to southwest Colorado and took a job as a Park Ranger at Mesa Verde. Prior to that, I had worked as a ranger at Shenandoah National Park from June, 2022 to May, 2023; at Yellowstone National Park from May, 2023 to October, 2023; and Carlsbad Caverns National Park from January, 2024 to September, 2024. From the moment I arrived, I knew I did not like it here, and that this park was not a good fit for me. I kept applying on USAJobs for other positions, but just wasn’t having any luck. Then, in January, 2025, the Trump administration instituted a federal hiring freeze that has now been extended indefinitely. Basically, I have no way out of this job except to leave the federal government. And with the job market now flooded with arbitrarily laid off federal workers and a recession on the horizon, I’m having trouble finding another job outside the government either — even with one of those STEM degrees I was told were so valuable and an MBA on top of that. So, to put it bluntly, I am trapped in a job that saps me of all my energy and all my feasible alternatives are worse.
Since I moved here, I have been in a near-continuous mental health crisis the entire time. That’s not an exaggeration. I’ve noticed myself going more and more insane as time has passed. And recently, it’s culminated in what I’ve described; a complete lack of the ability to feel joy or happiness, or anything other than anger and fear other than the baseline radio static feeling of existence. And I can’t really do anything to stop it, much as I have tried. I’m an extremely introverted person, albeit a social introvert. I enjoy interacting with people, but I need a lot of alone time to compensate and recharge. And the more my social battery is drained, the more time I need for that. At most parks, this ratio is manageable; I’m able to catch a breather enough to prevent myself from totally being burnt out. But here, at this park, it’s nonstop public interaction in a way I have never experienced in any job. It’s either leading cliff dwelling tours all day every day or it’s working the desk all day every day. There is no reprieve long enough to compensate. Even now, in the 41st day of a government shutdown, I dread going back to work because I simply have not had enough time to recharge. It will likely take me years.
And nobody else seems to get it. I am entirely alone in disliking this job. I communicated to a coworker once that I didn’t really want to talk to anyone and her response was a tongue-in-cheek “great career choice.”
It actually was a great career choice — it was a poor job choice. But I had no way of knowing prior. In a conversation with another coworker, the problem did temporarily fix itself when he said “my life isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be happy about it.” I realized I could do that too — in psychology, this is what’s referred to as locus of control. But it was a band-aid on a bullet wound. You can’t just think away this level of burnout. You have to remove yourself from it.
It hasn’t been all bad. Since I moved here, I’ve fallen in love and had my heart broken. I’ve moved into a house that I’ll hopefully be able to move out of sooner than later. I’ve tried things like Born Again Outdoors, my short-lived ecommerce store Hearth & Husk, my short-lived ghostwriting endeavor Hidden Ink Studio, all of which failed and resulted in me just wasting what little money I had. I’ve become fearful of any and all social interaction… alright, maybe it’s been all bad.
I honestly don’t know what I enjoy anymore. I don’t know what I want to do with my life or career. I’m probably suffering from some form of anhedonia and definitely need to make more money in my day job to be able to experiment more to find what actually makes me happy. But I know it isn’t this; not Born Again Outdoors, and not the National Park Service.
So, if you’re still reading, thank you. Maybe I’ll see you around.
