I Found My Nepal Photos. I Wasn't Ready

Scrolling through my phone at 1AM, there they were. Annapurna sunrise. Prayer flags. Me grinning at 14,000 feet. But the photos don't show the panic attack at base camp. Or how I cried for three hours because my boots didn't fit and every step felt like glass. They don't capture the moment I realized I'd signed up for this trip to prove something to an ex who'd already moved on. The mountain broke me open in ways I wasn't ready to document. The real transformation happened in the spaces between shots—in the 4AM bathroom runs, the altitude headaches, the quiet surrender when I stopped trying to be the person I thought hiking the Himalayas would make me. Six years later, looking at these photos, I finally see what I couldn't then: I was already enough before I climbed a single step. #Travel #PostTripReality #TrekkingTruth