Date: 2018-10-19
From: Hawk Mountain shelter

To: Amicalola State Park
Miles today: 8.1

It¢s so hard to put this day into words, but I¢ll do my best.  While I was hiking this morning and listening to my music on shuffle, a song came on called Heading Home by Gryffin. That¢s when it hit me. It feels like I¢m going home. It feels like I¢ve been on a very long pilgrimage headed not towards a place necessarily, but a feeling. That¢s when I realized that my home isn¢t Texas, or even Springer Mt. Home for a thruhiker is a feeling that can only be reached at the terminus of one¢s hike. I¢ve been hiking for so long, hurdling so many walls on the trail and in my head. And it all comes down to this. I feel like everything in my life has been leading up to this moment. For some, that moment is their wedding day, the birth of their kids, etc. But for me, it¢s this trail, completing this hike. In the beginning, I could never fathom the finish line. It was way too far off. A dream that hardly seemed real or in sight. But it¢s here. It¢s today!I couldn¢t have asked for a better day to finish my hike. It was sunny, 65 degrees. And because of the extra distance I put in yesterday, I only had 8 miles until the summit. I was trying so hard to take it all in, but I was running. Hiking Springer Mt is nothing like hiking Katadhin in Maine, but it still meant everything to me. During these past couple of days, I was worried I¢d get to the summit and just feel numb. No emotion. No way to process the moment. But then I got there. There were about a dozen dayhikers and sectioners up there, and then also Wookiee and Disco. Disco saw me and immediately announces ¢Here¢s another finisher!¢ I looked up at the small crowd and instantly fell apart. I dropped pack and ran back down the mountain about half a mile. I¢ve never felt so overwhelmed in my life. You know that pause you feel at the end of a really good book? Like the end was always inevitable, but there¢s almost a sense of shock that it¢s arrived? You can see the end nearing as the pages between your fingers become thinner and thinner. You probably have already guessed the ending by now, or at least know some of it, but you can never really anticipate the feeling the closing words will give you. And then before you know it, you¢re there. You¢re on the last page. It¢s finished. That¢s kinda how I feel. But instead of reading a book, I¢ve been experiencing the development of my own story. A story that just so happens to be 2,190.9 miles long, across 14 states, within 156 days. And now I¢m sitting on my very last page. Specifically, I¢m sitting by a fireplace in the lobby of a fancy lodge (thankfully on Disco¢s credit card) at the base of Springer Mt in Amicalola State Park, staring up at this giant 3-story map of the Appalachian Trail thinking HOT DAMN! I just did that shit. It¢s honestly a lot to fully process in one day. All I can say now is that this is truly the best day of my life. I¢ve never felt so accomplished, so capable, so proud. The day you realize you can literally do ANYTHING - that¢s a good day. So I¢ll sit in this plush lobby and stare at this huge AT map that was at one point just a picture of a dream, a big whim, a ¢bucket list¢ token. But now it¢s a reality. It¢s a history. It¢s my story.Stay tuned for some more sappy, deep shit. I¢ll share The Lists and pour out my soul concerning everything I¢ve learned and gained! But for now, I¢m gonna take a really long nap.