A couple of days ago, Who Knows came across me hanging out at Watauga Lake, and he said "LadyPants, I can always tell when you've had a tremendous day." And... yes. I've never been one of those people who are good at hiding their feelings. The amount of quiet, productive pleasure I've been taking from this hike is written all over my face, day after day.
Nearly every day is a tremendous day.
There is a part of me that is concerned that I will never be able to adequately describe the personal meaning of this journey or to fully explain how the experience is changing me at a cellular level (and I don't mean the sunburn on my arms). I can feel my soul start to stitch itself back together again, and I know that I'm going to be emerging from this experience whole.
When I checked into the ranger station at Amicalola Falls back in March, the ranger on duty asked me if I was going all the way to Maine. I think I gave him my standard line, which was "That's the idea." He immediately started teasing me, telling me that I needed to say "YES," as if the only reason that 75% of people don't make it all the way to Katahdin is because they don't want it badly enough. But honestly, at that time, the answer wasn't YES. It was 'probably' or 'maybe' or 'I sure hope so.' A false sense of bravado at the start of a momentous undertaking doesn't help anyone (except for professional wrestlers), and certainly doesn't reflect the way that I feel.
Somewhere in the past week I've noticed that whenever I'm asked if I'm going all the way to Maine I've started nodding. I've stopped adding qualifiers designed to give me an out just in case this doesn't work out. I might break my ankle in two places tomorrow, forcing me off the trail, but today, at the very least, today I'm headed for Maine and am a thru-hiker. In short, YES.
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