Date: 2019-06-24
From: Glasgow

To: Glasgow 
Miles today: 10.9

So... it¢s not going to work. At least the slackpack isn¢t. Salamander and I headed out to slackpack today and we were both pooped. I definitely partied too hard and was having a rough time, and she was in worse shape. I successfully hiked 12 miles, and she stopped around 6. She texted me and said Stanimals was picking her up, and I didn¢t want to leave her behind, so I called and asked if they could pick me up too when they came for her. We didn¢t finish the 20 miles we planned to do, and I was definitely discouraged. Especially since I was already feeling pressure, and now it was mounting.We got back to the shelter, as we had planned. It was going to be a 20-mile slackpack south (wait, Debbie will slackpack south now? Debbie isn¢t putting herself in a box? What?). And then we¢d come back to the shelter since it was free, and have Stanimals take us back to the spot tomorrow. But now, I knew we¢d have some trouble. We couldn¢t do a whole 20-mile slackpack today, and we weren¢t probably going to be able to do one tomorrow. And we had paid Stanimals and I was stressed about it all. I was just totally bugging out. And I didn¢t think I could spend much longer in Glasgow hearing ¢B double E double R U N! Beer run! Beer run!¢ And being surrounded by bugs and flies and filth, which unfortunately comes with a ¢beer run¢ party shelter. I ended up saying to Salamander, ¢let¢s just skip now. I¢m miserable, we¢re both feeling behind, let¢s just do it now¢. And she seemed very hesitant, but we had agreed we¢d skip, so she said yes. And I called Stanimals and arranged for a ride tomorrow to Devil¢s Backbone Brewery. It was not a huge jump, as it would¢ve taken us two days slackpacking, and I at least had 12 of those miles under me now. But it was a jump that would work. We¢d be at a fun place where hikers can camp for free and enjoy beer, and we¢d only be 20 miles from Waynesboro, which was a nice town and a good place to get ready for the Shenandoahs. We had a plan. I was sick to my stomach trying to do this skip and I know Salamander was too. It was eating away at both of us, but she reassured me and we both seemed to make peace with it somewhat. But it took me a bit for sure. We went to a free pasta dinner at the church in Glasgow. It was not great (again they didn¢t brown the top) lol, but my real reasons for saying that come from this one b**** church lady. I am sorry, but Jesus take the wheel. What she said to me, lord have mercy I could scream. At first, dinner was okay. We all went around and said our trail names and our reasons for being here/funny stories. Rukus said he got his name from a tattoo that says ¢bring the.... rrrukus¢ and we all cracked up, knowing it said more than that! There was another guy from CT here, NASA. He¢s super cool! And an adorable girl who he¢s hiking with, Joplin! She¢s so great! She loves classic rock like me and the two of them are just a blast to hang out with. After dinner though, the lady at the church said, ¢well you¢ve been out here a long time, did you ever expect to make it to Maine?¢ I¢m sorry, get your BUTT out here and try this yourself and then sass me out like that. I stood up for myself and said, ¢I have plenty of time. And if I need to, I can skip up and come back and do it¢. And then she basically chucked the knife in and stabbed several times. ¢Well you do know you¢re not a thru-hiker anymore then, right? If you skip, you¢re just a section hiker¢. A man next to her agreed and said ¢yup you¢re just a section hiker now. But that¢s okay. That¢s a great thing to be. But you¢re not a thru-hiker¢. The rage that was building was enough for me to literally flip the table over and scream. But I stayed calm. I fought them on it and told them the ATC would recognize me as one and blah blah blah, but there was no point. They were never going to agree with me. Isn¢t there something about loving for who we are without judgement? Are these people even religious? Oh we¢re so ¢Christian¢ and nice, yeah bullshit. You made me pasta and ruined my entire night. You suck.I was crying the entire way back and sat on a picnic table just miserable. I have been over and over this and I have given myself so much hell for my decisions. It is just so unfair to be given more hell. Again here we go with opinions and when is the right and wrong time to KEEP THEM TO YOURSELF. I felt so low and depressed, I was having bad thoughts. I wanted to quit and to disappear. I kept thinking, well I can¢t quit, because won¢t everyone hate me then and tell me I haven¢t done anything. And if I can¢t quit then I can¢t stay out here cuz I¢m miserable. So maybe I¢ll just wander into the woods and disappear. I was actually that depressed. And the church lady just put the nails in my coffin. I have not been this unhappy since last summer. This low, this miserable. I almost called my therapist, but I tried to get through it myself. I tried to sit there and process it and make peace with myself. I tried. But I was so completely done. Everyone was actually really supportive at the shelter and kept cheering me on. Cut-Off was an angel and Salamander was so great too. The section hiker from last night was even sweet and seemed to realize just how miserable I was now. He said ¢if it¢s good enough for you, then it¢s good enough for them, because it actually is good enough¢. It helped a bit, but I was still so low. He said ¢it¢s the teller not the tale¢. And that¢s true. This is my story, it¢s MINE. It¢s about how I want to do it, about how I¢m feeling and processing. And it really makes me think about journey vs destination anyway. Again with my cheesy quotes, but this isn¢t about the end. At the end, the best journey of my life will be over. I don¢t want it to be over. I don¢t want it to just be about getting to Katahdin and then being like ¢k guess I¢ll go home now¢.This generation has a way of making everything about the end destination. It¢s always about how many accomplishments we have, how many trophies, how many things we can put on a resume, how many things we can be involved in, how many things we can BRAG about. But it¢s never about our journey. It¢s never about our growth as people, our paths. Someone will be a drug addict with a hard dark past that they worked hard to overcome, and yet all we focus on is the label that they were a drug addict. We don¢t focus on their journey or how strong they are to have come out of that. It¢s not fair. It¢s not fair that I could quit at 800 miles and people will say, ¢well you didn¢t finish¢ instead of ¢wow, tell us about your journey, tell us how you learned¢. Or ¢wow, we can see how much you¢ve grown, what a journey that must have been¢. It¢s always ¢when are you going to finish? How many miles a day do you do? Shouldn¢t you be ahead? Shouldn¢t you do more miles? When did you start? Isn¢t that a long time ago? Aren¢t you slow? Aren¢t you a COMPLETE FAILURE for not doing this the way WE said you NEED TO?¢.I¢m tired. I¢m just so tired. It¢s been a time. I¢m sorry to my readers. This is such a low time. But I¢m writing this after the fact and I promise there is good to come and I will be okay. Little Debbie