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This morning, I thought I was backing up a website. Instead, I found myself in tears. First of frustration, then of disappointment, and finally of gratitude and relief tinged with some grief.

It started as a practical Sunday morning project. I wanted to preserve my old blog (the first 167 posts; this is number 209) before closing the hosting site that had housed it during its early years. What I didn’t expect was to discover that I wasn’t protecting a collection of posts. I was protecting a chapter of my life.

Breadcrumbs Toward Something New

For the past ten days since our daughter graduated, I’ve felt as though life has been quietly doling out breadcrumbs. None of the experiences seemed connected at first. A swim in alpine Glacier Lake. Watching ducklings and goslings at Union Bay. Rockhounding at Hansen Creek.

Scouting a stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail to Windy Pass as a Mountaineers club hike. A solo walk beneath towering trees at Hamlin Park on a weekend I’d expected to be backpacking for three days. Each left me with the same feeling: I am changing.

Closing One Container

When I got an alert that CourtSchurmanGo.com needed to be renewed, I remembered a promise to myself to back up my entire blog before I closed the site. My blog wasn’t ending. It had already found a new home at ThriveClues.com. But before letting go of the original site, CourtSchurmanGo.com, I wanted to preserve the place where those initial 167 posts had lived.

I wasn’t so worried about the site itself, I was worried about losing what it held. The first 167 posts, with Ajax woven through almost all of them. A body of work created from thousands of miles, quiet observations, and years of paying attention. My origin story and leadership arc, in essence.

The Moment Everything Changed

I started with Hostinger, since they sent the initial and repeat warnings. Only… I couldn’t find my blog there. So I enlisted Hostinger’s AI help which only sent me spinning around and around in confusing circles. I could feel myself getting more and more frustrated, when I finally swiped at angry tears. HOW the heck was I going to save 4 years’ worth of work from 2021-2024 without painstakingly copying each and every one of those earlier posts?

And then, through the lovely assistance of my own AI, Chat GPT, I started to look for /wp-admin. I held my breath…

And burst into happy tears.

There they were. 

Seattle Sounds, July 31, 2021. My opening poem about sensory details from the Pandemic. The first on CourtSchurmanGo and one I more recently shared on my Thrive Clues blog. My second, Muggy and Buggy, Is Granite Mountain the Right Path (August 7, 2021) sharing a story about my hike with Ajax up Granite Mountain in the heat.

I realized why the tears came: my blog wasn’t just a blog. It’s what Ajax and I created together on the trail. And there he was, below Granite Mountain’s lookout, on the alert smelling a pika.

Those posts weren’t mine alone. They grew out of thousands of shared miles, quiet observations, birds, lakes, seasons, conversations, and the faithful companion who was beside me through nearly every one of them.

What the PDF Taught Me

I always thought I was writing a weekly blog. Today, I realized I had been writing myself into adulthood. Beyond children’s literature. And beyond the life I knew with Emily. Into a voice that could hold change, leadership, grief, joy, and hope.

Nature has become my classroom. Leadership has become my practice. Trip reports and blog posts have become the place where I turn experiences into meaning. And while Ajax is no longer physically beside me, every time I visit a trail or take an urban walk, I bring him along. A heart-shaped rock. Stone with “courage” etched on it. His collar or leash. Legacy lessons. And his love.

Over the past seven weeks I’ve been deep diving into what matters most to me and chiseling away whatever doesn’t. I’ve discovered my emerging purpose grows stronger with every class I teach, every client I help, or every hiker I lead: I help people rediscover confidence, freedom, and connection through experiences in nature. All experiences, from birding to nature journaling to walk and talks to hikes and backpacks.

The Trail Continues

The website helped shape my voice, but it never contained it. That voice now walks with me into the next chapter, just as Angel Ajax always will.

On July 15, CourtSchurmanGo.com, the original home of my blog, will disappear. The writing won’t. Those stories live on at ThriveClues.com, and so, I hope, will the voice that found its footing there.

I open another chapter with the confidence to continue walking into whatever trail comes next. Words, trails, and Angel Ajax forever beside me, reminding me to keep noticing, walking, writing, and loving.