Date: 2004-04-28
From: Abingdon Gap Shelter

To: Mt. Rogers Outfitters Hostel, Damascus, VA
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: clear sky

I¢m more than a little down tonight. My mom¢s visit and departure was harder on me than I expected. Former thruhikers say that when this stops being tough physically, it starts being tough emotionally, and I can feel that coming. So the day: We woke up early, basically, and booked it into town. It was mainly downhill, and the miles flew. We had a great conversation about God, and hell, and Christianity¢-I¢m going to miss mom so much hiking¢-just talking makes the miles fly. I miss her already. By the time we got into Damascus it was beautiful and sunny and warm¢-we posed for pictures beneath the Damascus arch.It¢s always bizarre coming into town, even with someone. It¢s so overwhelming. So I got a room at the hostel¢-TT offered to share¢-and Mom picked up her car. We had a zillion errands to run, showers to take, food to sort through, lunch to eat, and it had to be done before Mom left, and she had to leave early enough to get enough sleep to go to work in the morning. It was hard.To make things worse, I locked TT¢s keys in our room at the worst possible moment, before we ate anything, and felt horrible about it. There is nothing I hate more than inconveniencing other people through my own stupidity. Luckily, Hey Bob broke us in while Mom and I was at lunch, and we brought TT a dessert peace offering. He was really sweet about it, and I think it was a much bigger deal for me than it was to him, but still. It was idiotic of me and at the worst possible moment emotionally.We did get things done, though¢-sandwiches for lunch, my laundry, the maps for the next several weeks, sorting through my mail drop. It was good but also sad¢-I didn¢t want to spend my time with business. I wanted to spend it all basking in my mom¢s continued presence. The time came for her to leave way too quickly, with a ton of stuff left to do, but she had to go. The goodbye was horrible. We both started crying¢it was far harder than I had thought. I miss her, and my family, and Erica, and my friends way more than I thought possible. It¢s so hard being alone.People out here are great, but there are very few real connections. For one thing, you never know if you¢re going to see someone ever again. It¢s exhausting investing all this time and energy getting to know all these new people every day, only to have them disappear the next. So people definitely have emotional barriers up. You protect yourself from the other people because we¢re all alone out here. Alone, lonely, but never really because there are always five other people in the shelter at night. Crowding your space. The people are the hardest thing out here, unexpectedly, and not in a bad way¢-missing people at home, comparing yourself to the over-achievers, sharing space with strangers, being unable to keep up with people with whom you do have a genuine connection¢¦It¢s hard. It¢s not at all the walking that¢s the hardest thing.So everyone sympathizes with my mom leaving, but no one really understands or cares¢-I don¢t think they really want their moms to come out, and I don¢t think they would. Very few parents are as cool as mine. And, now that she¢s gone and I¢m alone again, they don¢t understand my grief. Good-byes are so hard¢-why do I keep putting myself through them?To make things worse (or better), I got two surprises in this mail drop: a package with some granola bars and a letter from Grandma Jenks, my first care package on the trail--yay!--and a card from Kimberlee, a friend from home. She had given me some sealed cards to put in random mail drops and I had completely forgotten about them. In it was a picture from a Labor Day celebration last year, of me, tan, beaming, at the Beav's house with a plate of food, Peter my brother on one side and Kathryn, another friend, on the other.In it was also a Native American quote:With visible breath I am walkingA voice I am sending as I walkIn a sacred manner I am walkingWith visible tracks I am walkingIn a sacred manner I walkIt brought me to tears, too. It reminded me how wonderful all my friends are, and how much I love my life in Chicago¢-what am I doing out here? Why did I throw that all away?