Date: 2004-02-14
To: Timing is Everything
Miles today: 0.0

My life over the past few years has felt like a series of "wrong place, wrong time" moments. Whether it has to do with school, work, relationships, or life in general, I've felt like I don't really belong where I am. If I had come a year earlier or a year later, things may have been different, but, wherever I am whenever I am there doesn't feel like the right place. It's kind of like when you take dayquil and get that little buzzy feeling like your head is a balloon ten feet above your body, just swaying there, back and forth, a few seconds behind everything that's going on.The only thing I can refer to to help you understand would be the movie Big Fish. In this movie, the main character is leaving his home town and he walks through the woods and arrives at this mystical city where everyone smiles and no one wears shoes. When he gets there, the mayor of the town asks his name, looks in this big book and says "Oh, you're early! We weren't expecting you for some time." After dancing in the street (which is grass, no pavement in the creepy happy town) the main character decides to leave and promises to come back later. Only, there's a problem:When the main character finally does make it back to the town it's too late and the town has been ruined. He's missed his chance again. Chance for what, we don't know because we don't see what could have happened had the main character been in this town exactly when he was supposed to be.I suppose it all goes back to the fate/destiny/coincidence debate.Do the choices we make, even if we know they are the wrong ones, screw up our chances at ending up where we're supposed to be? Or, could our fate be the same no matter what path we take? Or, yet again, could everything be coincidence and there be no destiny or faith at all?Even now, I still feel like my timing is off. Not for the hike, the hike is the only thing in my life right now that does feel certain and right. No, what I mean is should I have stayed in Greensboro until I was ready to go on my hike, working at the television station and being with friends down there? Would things have turned out differently? Would I be where I am now?Or what if I had come home but not worked nights at the book printing company. What if I had looked for a "real" job? Would things have been different?What if I had gone to China with my professor this summer to teach English like he wanted me to do?Do all these "what-if's" have a purpose? I mean, if we sit here and try to analyze where we would be if we had made this choice or that choice, is it really worth it, because even if we figure out where we would have been we're not there, so what's the point? I know we should try to be happy with our lives the way they are, but when you know things aren't "clicking" like they're supposed to, when you have a whole bunch of "wrong place, wrong time" moments that just add up and add up isn't it time to make a change? Isn't it time to do something to try and figure out where you need to be to make everything be on the right track?This a lot of what the trail is going to be for me. A time to catch up on the past few years of my life, to deal with things I haven't had time, or haven't allowed myself to deal with, you know, the things I've been too busy to deal with. I'm sure at some point some of these topics will make it into my journal, because these journals aren't just to talk about what we ate, how far we hiked, who we hiked with. These journals are to let others know what hiking is like, the introspection that comes with hiking, how our thoughts change day to day, just like the terrain on the trial. So, this whole "wrong place, wrong time" phenomenon in my life is about to go bye-bye. Everyone wave your little white hankies and say "au revior" because we do not want to see this anymore in two weeks. In two weeks from Monday I will be on the AT, ready to let life catch up to me, or me catch up to life. I've got six months to get the Wheel of Time back on track and working with me. But, in the meantime, there's a lot that needs to get done, so let's get to it!Slainte!