Date: 2009-01-07
To: I should have written this a LONG time ago.
Miles today: 0.0

      I realize that the journal concluding my trail experience should have come a long time ago, like back in September, but I didn't want to write my concluding statement until I had found a bit of happiness in my own mind about the conclusion of the trail. To be honest, I don't even know if anyone who followed this while I was hiking will read this, and it gave me pause to consider if I should even post it. In the end, I decided that I deserved to have a conclusion for myself because this whole journal was a public experiment in personal transformation.       My last journal, written almost four months ago was about relationships and their importance in our lives. I left that writing session with one goal in mind, to take the few friendships I did have and make them count. However, in the past four months I have learned some very frustrating lessons about relationships. Maybe it is my age and the fact that I am surrounded, for the most part, by flaky college students but I have a sneaking suspicion that since all of my friendships have failed and there is only one common demoninator in them, that being myself, that that one thing must be making or breaking my relationships.       I imagine that many people find it hard to look at something like failing friendships in their lives and lay the blame on their own doorstep rather than that of all the others who wronged them. I guess in this case it is different for me because I came back from the trail acknowledging that my standards for my friendships, and how I was going to let people treat me, was changed. In fact, I almost take pride in the fact that I am the cause of failure in these relationships because it means that the people I thought valued me didn't actually treat me with the respect that I, the new and improved Crash, saw she deserved and that if if a higher failure rate in friendships is what I saw, I think I should take this as a sign that what I had previously valued in "friends" was a bit skewed.       Faith Hill has some lyrics that go, "You've worn the soles off both your shoes, walking on me like you do," and I have always felt that way in my relationships. I don't stand up for myself because the slight is "not that bad," or I wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings or I just want to avoid confrontation so I let people walk all over me. I realized on the trail that the only person who was being hurt by rationalizations like these, were me. No one can live when they are being held down by their "friends" and that is exactly what was happening to me because I had no worth in those relationships. I see now that until you see yourself as being respected, no one will respect you, no matter how good of a person they are.      After the trail I cut the ties with the people who had always been outright awful or toxic to me, figuring it was better to cut the bond clean than have a nasty confrontation. I only kept those friends close to me who I sincerely thought would help me grow and encourage the new, transformed Crash to take root in Sarah's life. Over these past few months I have been sorely disappointed to realize that the relationships I thought were good were not that healthy, and for various reasons are not as positive or as stable as I thought.       The point of this journal is not to make me sound like a big wuss, but if you had been following my journals from the beginning I'm sure you could tell from gymnastics that I did let people tear me down easily and keep me there. The point of it is to show you that for the first time in my life, I have a spine. My old scars from gymnastics, those reminders of sad history that held me back, were healed. I am standing up for myself and not taking crap from friends or strangers. In fact, I got into an altercation with some of the girls at work. They started to gang up on me and jump down my throat but, without even thinking about it, I defended myself. I didn't do what I did in gymnastics and just take their insults meekly. Crash fought back! Even if I have to deal with Girl World bitchiness from here to eternity, I don't care. I won for myself and nothing else matters.      Hiking the trail was transformative and really empowering. After gymnastics I never saw myself as having power or being worthy of respect in friendships so people never gave me the respect that I was desperately searching for. Like I said, you can search for something, and want anything with all your being, but unless you see yourself embodying that characteristic, you will never have what you most deesperately seek. It's a little funny because all I did was walk North, physically, but emotionally and physchologically, I have found strength beyond any stretch of the imagination. I went through a stage where for several months I was really depressed because I watched my close friends fall away from me. They never could see me as an equal and that was the problem, it's the reason our relationships have fallen apart. I see myself as having and holding respect in my friendships, and they don't. I was understandably sad to see the bonds I had spent years strengthening, or so I had thought, break down in a matter of weeks, but now I see a new side of myself.       After I stood up for myself at work, when i was against nearly the same thing had been up against in gymnastics many years before, I was forced to see that I was a completely different person than I was before the trail. Seeing weak relationships fall apart no longer bothers me because it took a weak person to forge them. I am looking forward to making the strong bonds which I know that strong people make and I see myself as being respected and having loyal friends surround me. Until I find the people who are capable and willing to hold up their side of a relationship, I can be perfectly happy being alone. The way I am looking at it is this way, who needs a million disrespectful, toxic friends, when you can wait awhile and have one or two meaningful and dynamic ones?      In the end, I am glad that I didn't write my conclusion for five months because it took five months for me to feel happy about not being on the trail and it took that long for me to really see the results of what I did out there. I am trying to be a better person everyday and I am so happy for my adventure last summer because, while in some respects I am still having a tough time figuring life out, figuring me out and exploring the depths of my transformation is really exciting.      I have some really quirky plans for this summer that I plan to journal about but I thought it was important to finish one adventure before beginning another. Stay on the look out for Crash Into Things!