Date: 2004-07-08
From: Hwy 850, Pa.

To: Duncannon, Pa.
Miles today: 9.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Start: Pa. Highway 850Destination: Duncannon, Pa. One thing I like about staying at a Bed & Breakfast is that you meet some of the nicest people and you get to interact with them. There were three other guests who joined Magoo,Veej and I for breakfast this morning. Two ladies were looking for a place to open a cheese factory, and there was a gentleman there who was a representative with a company that manufactures insulin. We had an interesting and informative meal. My shuttle picked me up, and I said goodbye to Magoo and Veej. Today's hike was through more corn fields, and over rocky boulder fields. The large square bails of hay were scattered here and there. I was glad that it was going to be a short hike today. My feet were still sore from yesterday's long hike.    Those of you who read my journal from last year's hike know that rather than trying to find myself out here, I more wanted to let go of all those things that weren't me. Whether there were things or behaviors I took on myself or those put upon me by others. So many times we become who we think people in our lives want us to be. Sometimes we take on ways or behaviors as a survival technique. Several times last year the Lord did a work in my heart. Whether it was a healing from past hurts, or a cleansing from shame, I had an enormous amount of baggage that I was carrying around with me. I left a lot of it on the trail last year, and this year I wanted to leave even more behind me. I wanted even more healing and cleansing for myself. Back in Harper's Ferry, I went into a little shop, just looking around. I found a small rock with the word Forgive etched in it. I bought it and every morning when I have my devotional I would ask the Lord to bring to my mind someone I needed to forgive. Several times a day I would touch this rock to refresh my commitment to forgiveness. A few nights ago I had a dream and it was about someone I needed to forgive. Someone I had not thought of in a very long time. Someone who had hurt me in an awful way. Some of you will find this hard to read, but I assure you, it is even harder to write. I truly believe that we go through things in our lives so that we can help others. We can say to some one,¢ I have been there, I know how you feel." I also believe that the secret shame of things that happen to us, whether because of someone else's actions or our own, that shame keeps us in bondage. It stays hidden in the deep recesses of our mind. I believe that sharing this is going to help someone that is reading this and it also is going to help me to let go of the shame and hurt that I have carried.   In my dream I was a small child, maybe 9 or 10. I was in a room with a young man who was lying on a bed, partially dressed. There was a toddler crawling around on the bed and he was playing with the baby. I had in my hand a beautiful handmade heart, like a Valentine that I had made for this man. I kept trying to give it to him, but he seemed disinterested in it or me, and shoved the heart away, laughing." Here, I am giving you my heart¢, I told him. He only laughed at me again. I was heartbroken and ran out the door crying. It has taken me several days of thinking and pondering this to make sense out of it. Some of it is crystal clear to me, some of it I am still trying to figure out. This man was a serviceman that my mother and step dad befriended. I was 13 years old at the time. Of course, I fell in love with him as a young girl is apt to do. There were many weekends that we all would go swimming or picnicking together. I gave this young man my heart and in return he took my virginity away with his hands. This has come as a shock to me, because I have believed for a long time that it was my natural father who did that, just because of things I remember about him and different situations. Yet plain as could be, the memory of that afternoon came flooding back to me. I felt like I had been hit really hard in my stomach. I had believed something differently for a long time. Now, why my mother trusted this man I do not know. He was 21 and in the service. Why she did not see a need to protect me I will never know. Why she trusted me is an even more serious question. The time in my life when I could have asked her these questions, she lay dying of brain cancer! , and it just didn't seem to matter. I know she did the best she knew how to. I did not want to give her anything more to regret than she had already. Now, let me say that I knew what we were doing was wrong. Yet I loved him and thought he loved me. I knew nothing about abuse, never thought at the time that it was abuse. Nor did I ever consider earlier situations in my life as abuse. This was just how everyone's life was. Wasn't it? Of course, this man was shipped out and for months, he wrote me, sent me cards from the different places he went. I was still in love with him, vowed to wait for him. Of course when he got out of the service, he went home to his girl friend that had his baby, and I got a dear Jane note from him. All my life I have equated love with pain. That is what I saw my parents do, until finally my alcoholic father left for good. This knowledge frees me from some of the things I believed about my father. Even though there are still some issues with or about my father, there is no doubt that was responsible for this horrible act against my body. It shocked me to remember that some where at home I still have all the cards and letters he ever sent me. Until this week, I still looked at him in a positive way, a childhood boyfriend, when in actuality he was an abusive and wretched man. What he took from me could never be replaced, and the memories were hidden in the back of my mind, like a sugar coated bag of candy. I needed to see the actions as they were, hurtful and harmful against a young girl who was too trusting and too naive and too confused to understand what was happening. In some ways powerless to make a better decision. Now that I see the truth, the ugliness of it, I desperately need to forgive not only him, but myself. I have long since forgiven my mother for the harm she allowed to happen to me, even those things she had a part in. There is such a relief in knowing and remembering the truth. How could I have remembered it wrong for so long? I spent hours going from hurt to anger to shame and back to hurt. Most of the next few days I will spend letting go of these chains of shame that have bound me for a long time. I was a child and was violated by a man I trusted. Of course this was not the first time I had been hurt by a man I loved. My father seemed an expert on hurting me, and my older brother was no better.Part TwoBoth of them are dead now, so I am left to resolve these issues alone. I am reminded of a verse in the Bible that says that our heavenly Father forgives us with the same measure as we forgive others. I don't think that his forgiveness to us is measurable, but our capabilities to receive that forgiveness is based on our experiences with others. Only when we can forgive and let go can we trust the Lord to lead us into total and complete forgiveness. Just as I was coming off of a steep climb I spied an ice chest off to the side of the trail. Trail magic!! Inside there are two juice drinks left, long past being cold, but oh so refreshing to a tired thirsty hiker. I hiked into Duncannon and was disappointed at what I saw. I am not sure just what I was expecting. But it sure wasn't this. A seemingly tired town, with run down houses and a dying downtown. Of course I can only see as I am walking and maybe there is more than this. As I cross under the highway, two men meet who have come from opposite directions and "shake " hands. One asked the other if he was staying at the Doyle Inn. The other man replies ¢I don't know, there are a bunch of hikers there." I already doubted my decision to stay there, and after the flood of emotions I had been going through I couldn't seem to make a decision that was better for me. I really needed to find a place warm and comforting. Now the Doyle Inn has been a hiker icon for years and years. But it has fallen to tough times and is in desperate need of repairs. The current owners are doing a good job trying to fix the place up, but frankly it would take a million dollars or more, and at $ 18.00 a room, it is going to take a very long time. Against my better judgment I got a room. The rooms are on the second and third floor with the first floor being a tavern. The draw for some of the hikers is the cheap beers and even cheaper rooms. Of course the cheap beer draws more than hikers. It also draws the town drunks, some of who live in rooms over the tavern. Now I cannot handle being looked at, or rather leered at by a man who has had way too many drinks. At least not tonight. I made a fast retreat to the third floor to my room. I got just what one would expect for the money. A room with a single bed, a ceiling fan with a pull chain light, a towel, washrag and clean sheets. On the positive side the linens were freshly laundered. There was no air conditioner, nor was there any screens on the windows, well I needed warm! The large hallway was cool, but try as I did, I could not get the transom above my door to open. The room smelled of stale air, but soon it smelled like tired hiker. I walked down the road and got a pizza, sitting and reading the local paper while I ate. I took the leftovers back to the inn with me and gave them to a hiker who was very appreciative. I got reprimanded by the woman at the tavern. Pennsylvania law says no open food beverages can be brought into another establishment. The hiker takes the box outside to eat. I took a hot shower and spent the rest of the evening reading a book. At one point a siren went off, one like I used to hear in the Midwest whenever there was a tornado spotted. I waited wondering if the place was on fire or something. One of the residents kept us up until early morning with his drunken tirades against who knows what or whom. It was a long night. Total miles 9