Friday, August 26, 2011

More Introspection Than You Can Shake a Stick At

I’m 320 miles from the end of my thru-hike, and am minorly confused.  The stores are starting to sell Octoberfest beer, and I’ve started to see red and gold leaves peeking out among the green canopy.  It’s fall already?  What the hell?  Where did the summer go?  Have I really been hiking for over five months? 

It feels like just yesterday I was leaving my home in Somerville, boarding the train for Georgia, and starting my thru-hike, wondering if I would be one of the ones to make it all the way to Maine.  And now I find myself reading texts and blog posts from friends who are ahead, who have finished or are nearly there.  Jetpack and Eats, the lovely people I started the trail with, summitted yesterday.  I myself am almost there, and I find myself wanting to go slower and slower to delay the inevitable return to bills, traffic jams, and a schedule that is not completely dictated by my own immediate wants and needs.

 My return to Boston has been weighing on my mind lately, for a number of reasons.  I’m worried about relearning to eat like a normal person (i.e. not eating an entire jar of Nutella in three days), I’m worried about relearning how to exercise like a normal person (i.e. not spending 12 hours per day exercising), I’m worried about having to make difficult decisions again (i.e. having to think about more than what to eat for lunch), and I’m worried about falling into my previous patterns of over committing myself to various side projects and volunteering.  I’ve met a number of former thru-hikers on the trail in the past few weeks who have warned me about the culture shock that comes along with re-entry into real life after the trail.  They’ve suggested that I have a plan, that I avoid crowds of people, and that I consider all that I’ve learned on the trail and integrate it into my new life.

But how do I come up with a plan when I don’t know how I’m going to react to reality after six months of a nomadic lifestyle in the woods?  How do I avoid crowds of people, and traffic, and noise, when living in Boston?  And finally, how do I know what I’ve learned?  I’m not so sure what I’ve gotten out of this experience is tangible.  I’ll be returning to Boston a different person that when I left, but not in a way that’s easily explainable.  Sure, I look different and I feel different, but how am I ACTUALLY different? 

My friend Lydia recent wrote me a letter recently in which she said the following: “I wonder if, like Peace Corps, one of the hardest parts of hiking the Appalachian Trail is returning to your normal life afterwards.  Trying to figure out how what you’ve learned and what you’ve done meshes with 'real' life.  When I think about it, I never fully made it back to 'real' life in a lot of people’s view.  Perhaps I changed my definition of what the real world is without even knowing it.  But that’s a challenge for the future, and part of the beauty of hiking is being forced to live in the moment.”

I’m going to spend my last month on the trail thinking about these questions and issues, but not worrying about them.  As my friend says, the beauty of hiking is living in the moment, and I intend to soak up every minute of my last 320 miles.  With the help of my wonderful friends and family I’m sure I’ll adjust okay after I summit Katahdin, as long as I remember that when I do return, the mountains will be waiting for me whenever I need them.

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