This week I was a jealous hag

Earlier this week, Kelsey Pfendler became the first American woman (and fastest person) to row across the mid-Pacific ocean solo. Her success has garnered press in everything I can think to google (CNN, GMA, New York Times, etc etc etc). Along her journey, she amassed hundreds of thousands of followers online.

Kelsey is incredible, her accomplishment VERY newsworthy and reading about her dragged me through a fiery hellscape this week.

Earlier this year I became the first American woman to ski solo and unsupported to the South Pole. The New York Times did not write about me. And not because I didn’t try. I hounded journalists from all the national outlets, stalking them on Instagram, checking in with them again and again. I tried really hard to get on a morning show. I got some nibbles and some wins—People, Forbes, The U.K.’s Metro—but mostly only New England cared about me. My biggest win, which was absolutely fucking awesome, was getting on the front page of the Boston Globe both before I set off and when I returned home triumphant. Print might be dead but seeing my face on the front page made me feel like I had really lived.

But I didn’t have this sort of runaway train of press that both Kelsey and Cole Brauer1 appear to have experienced. Whatever press I received, I worked quite desperately to snag. Perhaps they themselves pitched all these outlets, or their team did. Regardless, this week, I had to stop checking Instagram because the recurring headline of FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN made my stomach curdle itself in the acidic juices of envy.

I want to be a champion for other women doing cool shit so my reaction not only hurts my ego but also offends my own sense of self. How can I be such a narcissistic bitch about this? This is not about me. And yet, I can’t even read the articles about Kelsey. It took a lot of teeth gritting to get the smidge of research I needed to write this. All I see are the parallels between my story and hers and the quippy soundbites I didn’t get to give about empowering women to try hard things.

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I’ve tried to approach my jealousy rationally. Is there a lesson to be learned going forward?

According to Outside2, Kelsey used Starlink for internet access (as did Cole). Could I have done the same? Possibly. Antarctic expeditions are beginning to test out Starlink devices. The question is a bit more complicated in the polar regions because of the extreme cold, which drains batteries, and the nature of sled-pulling, which means every ounce must be pulled by your own hips day after day.

As it were, I was disconnected from most of the world for 57 days. Via my Garmin and satellite phone, I could text with family. But the waiting period for satellites to ping the messages back and forth meant I usually sent out an update in the evening and read responses when I woke up. The messages got split up into 140 character texts and would often arrive out of order. None of this encouraged much back and forth. I had no access to the internet, the news, or social media—and I could not send video.

Unable to post in real time, I didn’t gain any significant number of followers while I was on the expedition, despite getting very creative. Once I was back, I posted my daily video updates, which were quite successful (a video of me explaining my 2-month fungal infection got 3 million views) but not gaining-300k-followers successful.

I do know it would have radically changed my expedition and my training were I to have the connection that Starlink provides. I remember coming back online after crossing Greenland3 feeling like my brain cells had been rearranged. It was my first time since college being without the world in my pocket. There was no need to resist the urge to check Instagram because there was no Instagram. On Day 15, I had my first epiphany—which is honestly not too strong a word for it. I knew exactly what I wanted from life and what I needed to do to achieve it. All the other bullshit just dropped away. After 30 days, I came off the ice cap with my concentration restored, my phone addiction cured and a focused energy I hadn’t felt since I was a kid.

I was so shellshocked by the change, and so reluctant to lose what I had learned, that I didn’t return to social media—which is a major part of my livelihood—for six months. And the modern world has been dragging me back into its clutches ever since. I can sleep with my phone in the kitchen, limit my screen time, read every morning, but nothing’s been the same as when I was on expedition.

But if Starlink had been easily accessible and lightweight, could I have resisted bringing it? Would I trade that isolation for the chance to have all the press coverage of my dreams? With that level of coverage and increase in followers comes opportunities—book deals, speaking engagements, getting off Raya’s waitlist—and it is perhaps the best way to ensure there will be another expedition in the future.

I have no clue if Kelsey was scrolling Instagram before bed on the boat. With limited electricity and time, perhaps she only turned it on to send out her videos and updates. Maybe Kelsey is perfect and she’s not addicted to her phone so this is no big deal for her.

If I had had access to social media while on the expedition in Antarctica, I would have been posting in real time. I also would have spent some time in my sleeping bag scrolling, checking in with friends, and spying on my exes. Something would have been gained (perhaps 300k followers), but something would have also been lost.

I wish the system we’ve created, this monstrosity of the followers and the followed, was different. I wish when people asked me “Why weren’t you on Good Morning America?” I didn’t hear them saying “What did you do wrong?”. I wish we weren’t in this closed loop where what gets attention online becomes what gets attention in the media.

While going through my father’s laptop—icymi he died—I found a Word document labeled “My Death”. It began: “If you’re reading this, I have died. I am dead!” It was an obituary, of sorts, detailing his wishes for his own funeral, among other topics. He began it over a decade ago and never finished. In the first paragraph, he mentioned he would be writing each of us, his children, a letter. Instead, he wrote pages and pages detailing his career history. Why he was passed over for this promotion, how that lateral move led to a business ahead of its time that flopped, the few moments he felt success within his grasp, the more often times it was stolen from him. He was bitter about everything he didn’t get. And all I wanted to know was where my fucking letter was. I don’t think it exists.

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I don’t want to be bitter. I don’t want to be the swamp monster gurgling about what I should have gotten. I don’t want to be the person writing about my career instead of my loved ones. And let’s be honest about what’s happening here. It stabs me to see the news of these first American women getting picked up so easily when I wasn’t able to get these same big names to care because it echoes deep in the darkness of an original hurt, the stuff that happens to us when we’re young and we carry into adulthood. It makes me feel unlovable.

And that’s on me. That’s my own shit to deal with. I’ve seen first hand how any success just moves the goal posts. Once you get local press, you aim for national. Once you have 50k followers, you want 100k. As much as I want to believe that getting that level of press will change my life, the true life-changing experience is the one I already had. The one where I chose everyday to pursue a goal that seemed impossible, and then I fucking did it.

Today I sat on the back of a motorbike, music in my ears, Kathmandu blurring by, and remembered I am, deeply and truly, content4. Content with who I’ve become, how I spend my time—who I spend it with—and no amount of press would make it fundamentally better. There’s no denying it would have been the cherry on top—but I know the cherry is quickly forgotten once you’re digging into the sundae below. So, I’ll keep digging into the sundae I’ve got and, maybe next time, it will come with a cherry.

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