It was heartbreaking to realize how we can fail the people we most love without even trying.

Living as Wild Child, I could no longer be Debby Parker comfortably — this name that I’d been given at birth that defined me before I’d had the chance to define myself.

We aren’t afraid of what we can explain.

I didn’t know what I would do. There was no way I could survive. I stared at my damp tent ceiling, feeling the frigid air against me, the frozen ground against my bottom, so cold my bare skin burned. I needed to get to the next trail-town, Mammoth Lakes. There was no one here to save me now.

I was safe in this world. This was a place for creatures—I felt I had become more of a creature than a girl. I could handle myself in the wild.

I was no longer following a trail.

I was learning to follow myself.