My relationship with writing – The Trek

For most of my life, I have felt ashamed of my writing.

I really thought I was bad at it. Writing was not something I associated with creativity or self-expression. It was something I endured, avoided, and was silently ashamed of.

You may be wondering: why is someone like me blogging about the Continental Divide Trail?

The answer is simple.
Those exact reasons (insecurity, resistance, the belief that writing “wasn’t for me”) are the reasons I do it.

Where did the negativity come from?

If I look back at my relationship with writing growing up, the memories come thick and fast.

I went to school in the French (France) system in Montreal. Writing meant spending long afternoons after school with my mom, practicing spelling and grammar. It meant tears: hers from worry, mine from frustration. It meant getting the worst grades in the class on spelling and grammar tests, year after year.

In that school system, almost all subjects are based on the development of long, structured texts. My difficulties with writing didn’t just affect French class: they affected everything.

I constantly compared myself to my sister and parents, all of whom were excellent writers. They told me I didn’t read enough and that’s why my writing suffered. My handwriting was ugly. I felt embarrassed writing birthday cards. Even later, while teaching statistics in college, I was embarrassed to write the smallest comments on graded assignments.

For me, writing was never a place of freedom. It was a place of judgment.

Expression was the missing piece

Because of all this, writing never became a form of expression for me and I think I was missing something essential.

Expression is the key word here.

I don’t think I fully knew how to express myself. I probably made up for it with verbal skills. Ironically, although I am an introvert by nature, I learned to get through things with words. But emotionally? Sentimentally? That part remained locked up.

Instead, I expressed myself physically.

Outdoor sports have always been my language. They are my life and my most natural form of expression. I do them with the people I love (family, friends, my partner) and that’s how I show affection, connection and love. Moving through mountains, trails and weather is how I say things that I don’t know how to put into words.

Outdoor sports are who I am and what I do best.

But something changed.

2025: a turning point

2025 became a pivotal year for me.

For the first time since Elise and I arrived in Annecy three years ago, I felt depressed, sad, even depressed. I didn’t understand why. Most of it came from work and I knew I needed to talk to my boss. But when the time came, I couldn’t tell what was wrong.

The words just wouldn’t form.

And then, almost accidentally, I wrote it.

As soon as I did, something opened. Emotions he didn’t know how to name began to flow. For the first time in my life I felt like I was expressing myself on paper. Those words gave me clarity. They gave me courage. And finally, they gave me the strength to have a conversation that I couldn’t initiate verbally.

Writing finds me again

Another moment followed shortly after. I returned to Montreal for the first time in three years. I had an argument with my mom, one that went deeper than most. She told me she couldn’t express how much she appreciated everything he had done for me.

The hardest part was that I was wrong…and right at the same time.

I care deeply. I am grateful beyond words. But at that moment, my mouth couldn’t shape the feelings I carried. And suddenly, I remembered how writing earlier that year had helped me organize my emotions, feel them fully, and articulate them clearly.

That realization stayed with me.

The unexpected gifts of writing

This new relationship with writing brought benefits I never expected.

It gave me access to a form of creativity I didn’t know I had. It allowed me to tell stories I’d never told before and give them personality, humor, and even a bit of drama that would otherwise be difficult to convey.

Writing helped me describe the adventures Elise and I went on to people who may never experience them firsthand. It became a bridge between our world and theirs.

But the greatest gift of all has been reflection.

Writing is a meditative process. It forces you to slow down, access your feelings, process emotions, and relive memories more deeply. It not only documents life, but helps you understand it.

Why is it important to write in the CDT

Twenty-five years after my first handwritten memories (most of them negative), I am now creating new ones. Better.

At CDT writing will be especially important to me. It will help me feel closer to my friends and family, even if I am far away again. And maybe, through these words, you too feel closer to me, maybe even closer than if I were standing next to you, struggling to explain myself out loud.

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