People beep at me. Literally.

Cash registers beep. Phone notifications beep. Car alarms beep. And every single one sends my body into fight-or-flight mode, like someone just pulled a fire alarm in my nervous system.

I don’t know why. I just know it’s always been this way.

My brain is a surveillance system that never shuts off. Always scanning. Always watching. Always waiting for something to go wrong. Hypervigilance, they call it—this exhausting state where my nervous system treats every moment like potential danger, even when I rationally know I’m safe.

But rocks? Rocks don’t beep. And the granite mountains of Rangeley, Maine definitely don’t demand anything from me except presence.

---

“This won’t be a Disney cruise,” Jake said, handing me the helmet and keys. The rental guy had seen enough weekend warriors to know when someone was about to make questionable life choices.

I looked at the Polaris—all cage bars and knobby tires and honest brutality. My husband climbed into the passenger seat, already gripping the handle bars. Not from fear—he’d ridden these things back in his Army days. But today I was driving, and that was… different.

I hate driving. Cars make me tense, hyperaware of every variable I can’t control. But something about this machine called to me.

No demands here. No expectations. Just physics and engineering and the promise of four hours away from a world that keeps my nervous system on high alert.

“Perfect.”

---

The first twenty minutes were pure terror.

What the hell was I thinking? The Polaris lurched and bucked.

But something was already shifting in my head.

Out here, it was just the machine and mountain. And my husband gripping the passenger handles—trusting me with both our lives despite knowing how much I usually hate being in control of any vehicle.

“You okay?” he asked after a particularly brutal section, probably wondering if my car anxiety was about to kick in.

“Yeah,” I said, surprised to find I meant it. “Actually… really good.”

No beeping. Just engine roar and the crunch of tires finding purchase on ancient rock.

Twenty minutes in, the fear transformed into something else entirely.

---

Flow hit me like lightning.

For the first time in months—years?—my nervous system wasn’t on guard duty. The rocks laid out their challenges in complete clarity. That boulder says “go around me.” That drop-off says “slow down or die.” That loose shale says “choose your line carefully.”

No ambiguity. No mixed signals. Just direct, honest communication from the mountain.

---

Hours two, three, and four blurred together.

Pure flow state for hours. Every rock was a puzzle demanding immediate solution. Every turn required total presence. No bandwidth left for scanning the environment for undefined threats that my nervous system insists are everywhere.

The machine and the mountain demanded everything I had, and I gave it gladly.

Somewhere during the third hour, I noticed my husband had stopped death-gripping the handles. I caught him in my peripheral vision—phone out, filming our descent down an impossibly steep rock face.

“AAAAHHHHH!” His Tarzan yell echoed off the canyon walls as we navigated a particularly gnarly drop.

The sound didn’t send me into hypervigilance. Instead, it became part of the mountain’s language—pure joy ricocheting off ancient granite.

Four hours of my brain doing exactly what it was designed to do, without the exhausting false alarms. Four hours of feeling like myself again.

---

When we rolled back to the rental place, dust settling around us like fine powder, Jake was waiting with that expectant look rental guys get. Ready for the usual post-ride show—red faces, breathless excitement, adrenaline-fueled stories.

I climbed out of the Polaris. Calm. Quiet. Content.

“How was it?” he asked, clearly expecting the typical rush of words.

I raised both thumbs up. Barely smiled. Not because I wasn’t happy—I was deeply, profoundly satisfied. But my mind was finally quiet, and I didn’t want to interrupt that silence with unnecessary noise. Didn’t want to break the spell with breathless explanations.

Later, driving home in our quiet car, no beeping, no demands, I realized something had shifted permanently. Not that my hypervigilance was cured—it would return, as it always does. But now I knew what it felt like when my nervous system found its proper purpose.

Sometimes the brain that never stops scanning just needs the right mountain to climb.