Date: 2019-06-23
From: Lake house 

To: Glasgow
Miles today: 0.0

Today we had breakfast made by Nancy and Will. They are so wonderful! They made eggs, sausage, and pancakes! It was all delicious. Gabriel woke up late and I was happy I wasn¢t the last one up. I hate being the last one up. This always happens to me on vacations. Everyone thinks, ¢oh she¢s so peaceful, we¢ll let her sleep¢. Don¢t let me sleep! I don¢t like that! I feel like I¢m missing out! And then I wake up and everyone¢s been up doing things for hours and I¢ve missed it all! Wake me up! Lol y¢all know I¢m a deep sleeper and I sleep late, so I can¢t get myself up easily. But I know you can! But everyone was chill and easy going and I was up with the crowd, so it was good! We hung out a bit today, but we were going to leave and go back to Glasgow I think in the afternoon. I spent some time on the dock and organized my stuff and blogged a bit more. And then we were off! Nancy drove us back to Glasgow. We had her drop us off at the shelter in town that was built for hikers. It was free and we knew we probably wouldn¢t hike out today. We stopped at a view on the way and took a picture together! We tried to do piggyback, but were sliding a bit and quickly jumped down after the pic! Nancy was so wonderful all weekend and it was such a treat to stay with her and Will and our Brazilian friends. I was sad to see her go, but was very thankful for all she did! Salamander and I discussed the plan for the next day, and I said I wanted to slackpack. Salamander doesn¢t tend to slackpack, so unfortunately I was starting to see an issue in this new partnership. I really wanted to be with her, but I slackpack a lot, and if she doesn¢t want to, we may have a problem. But she seemed receptive for tomorrow, so I went ahead and booked it with Stanimals. At the shelter, we found ourselves with Rukus and several other partiers, including a girl named Cut-Off because she drinks too much, Real because she is almost too harsh and real with people, and Blazer, who I had missed seeing! We all drank quite a bit, and I wasn¢t peer pressured, but I certainly felt like this was a party spot. And I was seeing us being sucked into the party and my anxiety levels about how far behind we were and all that just skyrocketed. But for the night, I let us have fun. I didn¢t want to be a Debbie Downer! Haha. There was a ton of weed and alcohol and all that going around. I chatted with a section hiker who was critical of my decision to skip up, so screw that. But I stood my ground and said that it was my hike and left it at that. He did play some interesting music and we discussed that. I was a little disappointed in myself for how much I¢ve forgotten since I graduated. It¢s too bad. Not that I was necessarily going to use it anyway, music was always just an enjoyable thing, not necessarily a career. But still... I did actually have a moment tonight that made me thankful for my love of music. I picked up someone¢s guitar and began playing a few chords. And then I started to sing, which I never do in public because I really have stage fright, but I sang. And people started coming over and standing by me in a circle. I was nervous and stopping singing because I was embarrassed, but one of the girls said, ¢no please keep singing¢, so I did. She told me I have a beautiful voice and Blazer did too. I realized in that moment, when I was just playing and singing, why I love music. I was just there, and hadn¢t even noticed the people around me at first. I was just with the music. I only strummed a few chords because I don¢t know many anymore, but even a few chords can touch someone. Even a few chords could lift my spirits. I have not felt that happy in a long time, that much ¢myself¢. I need to bring music back into my life. But mostly I wish I could have the confidence to play my music more often in public like that. I want to share it and when I¢m in my element, I just jam out. It¢s always been a small fantasy of mine that I could be a singer as a career, but the stage fright always holds me back. And the comparison. So many people can sing, I¢m just one of them. It¢s hard to ¢make it¢ and be that someone special that¢s new to the music world. Someday maybe. Someone was talking about Taylor Swift the other day and saying how her dad funded her music career and was her manager. I don¢t know much about that, but I could imagine if you had connections or people that knew how to get you to the top, and money, that you could make it. But again, singing in front of people...I hope tomorrow we can get our slackpack in and make up some miles to get as far as we can before we skip! I think we¢ll make this work! Little Debbie