It was a typical night. I was procrastinating on my English paper and in the middle of my Pinterest roaming and Instagram scrolling, something stopped me. I had a board of "Adventures," and I was double-tapping every mountain pic that came my way. But I couldn't remember the last time I had touched a leaf. I texted my friend one of my pins and within minutes, she texted back.

"When are we going?!"

So we started pinning for a real adventure. We gathered woods-y things. You know, like dry shampoo, spork-knives, and a couple band-aids. Our last Walmart receipt consisted of some tent pegs, a bag of bagels, s'mores duct tape, and a pink plastic shovel from the kids section (because we read somewhere that we had to dig for toilets). We wouldn't be ill-prepared.

So we made our walk into the woods, a bit fuzzy because we changed trail plans last minute. I lifted our map in the air, feeling a bit uneasy.

You see, plant me in the middle of any city of your choice, and I promise you that by the end of the week I'll have navigated at least half of the metropolitan area, memorized the metro system, laid down some roots at a couple coffee shops, and have found the best taco eateries and thrift stores. But plant me in the middle of a forest, and I found myself double-checking for a 4G signal, a bit terrified we would get lost in the drift of pinecones and creepy-crawlers.

But I shut down my plastic girl fears and let out a lumberjack grunt. I convinced myself my flannel and hiking boots would make it out okay. So for the following three days, we continued our hike.

And you know what? Something happened. In the moments between setting up our tent, making a fire, crossing a dozen creeks, and basically growing leaves out of our hair, something shifted.

Nature became something, dare I say, familiar. Yes, we fell a couple times, broke a shoe sole, and walked out of the woods super sore; but being outside gave us a new type of clarity: of who we were, where we were, and where we're going. And that makes me realize that my walled-in, social-media-laden life is more debilitating than I thought.

Inside, my creativity and inspiration can only be drawn out to a certain extent.

But outside, everything is endless. The sun rays reflecting upon the silver creeks, the dew dropping off leaves unto deep, green moss. The purity of the air, the damp wood on fallen logs, the smell of fire, the moon and stars gleaming in the midnight sky.

Outside, there are endless discoveries, endless thoughts, endless adventure, endless imagination. I think we were made to be close to such things, to try to dig our fingers into the deep and secret roots of what has covered the earth far longer than our phones. When we do, we realize something deeper is calling. And that's why I think we need to go outside.