The mountains are calling and we must go...

It's not a joke when people say "once a hiker, always a hiker" or that once you've long-distance hiked it will change your life.

Even though it might not necessarily feel like that in that specific moment, there will be moments when you realise that it is true.

Sitting in your home as the rain is pouring down outside your window - feeling miserable, feeling like you're lacking something. It doesn't rouse that contentment of having a comfortable life, as it "should".

Rather, it is stirring something within you, a restlessness of the soul, a feeling which cannot be shaken off. Why is it so?

We long for the days when the sun was warming our faces after a long day of pouring rain. Of the days when we were watching the sun dip lower, towards the horizon, but never really touching it, spreading the vast open lands in golden rays and the mosquitoes swarming so bad that our ears might fall off. Of when crawling into our warm dry sleeping bags after an icy day with winds hitting our faces. Of eating the same breakfast as ever, while looking out over the mighty landscape thinking about how you, just like the birds or any other creatures, are free to roam the land. Free to go in whatever direction your hearts choose, should you decide to make that decision.

And yet, at some point, it will all be over, and we will return "home" and go back to all "shoulds" and "musts".

Why would you willingly put your soul in a cage again, once you threw the key and let it run free?

Restless souls, maybe that's what we now will be.