Date: 2005-03-09
To: I went to the woods to live deliberately
Miles today: 0.0

So I'm done with the trail, I guess, at long last, finally. I posted my last journal entry from July yesterday, and today realized I had done no post-trail entries since I summitted in October. It's been a tumultous couple of months--my sister was married in November, I've been staying with County and his father up in Maine, and now we're in Massachusetts staying with his mother, both working, trying to save up enough money for our next big adventure. Which is--drum roll, please--the Pacific Crest Trail. So I'll be starting my trail journal for that trail soon, but I'm still loath to let the AT go.Many people said that the winter after their thru-hike was the hardest time in their lives. I haven't found that, and I was more worried about than maybe anything else. I've gained some weight, but I don't feel like I've devolved into complete sloth. And I feel like this winter has been among the happiest times in my life. Maybe I differ from most thru-hikers in that I was so thoroughly prepared for a huge life change. I had cut ties with my old life: my apartment, my job, my friends. I was prepared to leave civilization, for the rest of my life, if needs be. And it seems they do. I went back to Chicago last week to see everyone--my cousin got married, and I spent an extra week in the city visiting my sister, her husband, the rest of my family, and my friends. I was shocked by how thoroughly I've moved on, and how different I feel from the people I love in my old life. The profligate way that people spend money sent me into a tailspin. Politically, economically, environmentally I feel worlds away from these people whom I know are progressive in the best of times. I think I've been insulated from that shock living in Maine, having already moved on to a new life instead of trying to return to my old one. Being in Chicago felt a little bit like going back to your high school the year after you graduate--everything you knew and loved is still there, but different. Smaller somehow. Your path has diverged from it.I wonder if that was, to a large degree, the reason for my success on the trail. I had cut ties with my old life. I was homesick at first, I did question my decision, and I longed for my family and friends, but I had committed completely to the goal, no matter how it would change me. And I had committed to separating myself from that life, too. Maybe that's why the homesick was so bad--I knew I couldn't go home again. Still, to confront that face to face was difficult. I still believe that I could go back, if I chose to--I just don't see myself choosing to anytime soon. County and I have about a five-year plan laid out--the PCT in 2005, the CDT in '06, and the next one's up for grabs. It's between the ADT, the new Coast-to-Coast route in North America, E4, the new Canadian trans-Continental trail if it's finished, or, my personal favorite, the Incan High Road, from the top of South America to the bottom.I'm struggling more with family objections, now, too. Everyone was very accepting of my desire to hike the AT--they're less accepting of me choosing long-distance hiking as a lifestyle. They're worried about me turning into a homeless person, not realizing that I already have. They're worried about me squandering my talent, whatever that may be. They keep asking why, what's the purpose in all of this, the meaning. For my family, international missionaries, that question has huge potency. All of us kids have spent our lives struggling under the weight of that burden. The Bible passage that haunts me is the one from which "to whom much is given, much is required" is taken, the parable of the talents. I have been given much, much more than I could have asked for. So what then is required of me? What is the right thing to do? Hiking seems a valid life pursuit--if nothing else, I'm modeling a valid alternative to the commercial and corporate prison in which most of us live our lives. And I truly believe--I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe this--that what I'm doing now will bear fruit in my later life. I keep feeling myself pregnant with some sort of gift, some later fruit, that right now I'm only feeding, gathering experience. Everyone asks me what I went to school for, and when I tell them English literature, they ask if I'm using it. "Yes," I say. "I take Thoreau at his word."So I went to the woods to live deliberately. I continue to do so. I'm following the path that is necessary for me. Where that will take me, only God knows. And I've found a companion in that journey. Again, I've been given more than I could ask for.