Date: 2014-09-04
From: Katahdin

To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

It's been almost a month since I summitted and thought I'd write a little follow up. Maybe not for you, but for me, so when I'm waxing nostalgic a few months or years from now and antsy again for another adventure, I can recall what this was all about. It's been a little bit of a rollercoaster and whirlwind all wrapped in one. Those few hours up top were some of the most contemplative, joyful, encouraging, worrisome, and peaceful of my life. I was ready for it to end but scared for what would begin. I hadn't really answered all my questions, but became comfortable with where I was in life. As if I didn't really need to answer them any more. Life has a way of working itself out. Like my mantra on the trail, "I'm not going to die". If I was without water, it would come eventually. If I was tired, I could rest eventually. If I fell, sure, maybe I'd break something, but it's all transitory. That has transitioned to everyday life. I'm not so worried about finding a job. It'll fall into place. Money, while I wish I had more, will come my way. Why worry? It's all part of the story. As a side note, I've been watching Orange is the New Black. Not as amazing as I'm hearing but real good. The first day in prison, the main character is told by a woman at peace with it all about Tibetan mandalas. The sand art that is painstakingly produced in infinite detail over many days only to be blown away when it's finished. They are a reminder that everything in life is temporary. There is never permanence except death and one should live their life with the acceptance and joy that change can bring. Back to the story. After I got off that mountain and into a car and to a B and B in Millinocket I was kind of in a daze. A happy daze but nothing at all had really set in. And oddly really wouldn't for a while. We gave a lift to several hiker friends and would see them later so the immersion was really still there. I'm a little disappointed (or maybe surprised?) in how easily I can cut off the trail in my head and move onto the next phase. I had just done this monumental thing yet I was happy to not look at my pack and get my bounce box and get showered and eat real food and sleep in a very comfortable bed. Why was I so eager to not be out there? I loved it. Loved ALL of it. I knew this is it...this is not a zero. It's over. Yet, I gave up the trail like a long week at work, happy it's the weekend. Hmm. It still bothers me almost a month later. A little emotion finally set in when the next morning, Debbie and I drove down to the hostel to say goodbye to friends. This is the crew I was off and on hiking with since Vermont and I wish I had hiked with them all earlier. Goodbye DaVinci and Lady Moose, Survivorman and Dino, Bean Dip and a new friend (who of all things lives a mere 15 blocks or so from my house) Soul Power. I got teary-eyed when we hugged and walked down those stairs to the car likely never to see those faces in person again. I'd love to pass Soul Power on the street at home though. That'd be a trip. Debbie and I headed off to the coast. Had a wonderful week in New England. Bar Harbor and hiking up Acadia. Lobster in a little lobster shack in Blue Hill. Great dinner in Portland. A really fun day and MORE fun evening in Ogunquit. (If you've never been I highly suggest the Front Porch piano bar - no I don't like them either but this was amazing). Then time in Salem, Provincetown, Plymouth then a few days in Boston with my friend Karl (thanks Karl!). My head was spinning the whole time. It was this completely carefree week. No worries about being on the trail and where my food was coming from. No worries about working or projects. Most other vacations it takes a few days for work to get out of my head then creeps in the last day before I return and limits my fun. Now, it was just completely carefree. Karl even took me to Newport, RI the last day and we had a fantastic meal at a restaurant right on the water with a huge lawn. I really felt like I needed the sweater over the shoulders thing and slicked back hair like I think people who aren't wealthy nor from the Northeast think people that are wealthy and from the Northeast dress like during the summer. Here's where it sunk in. Not the last morning. Not the drive to the airport. Not checking in or sitting at the gate. It was taking off. That was it. That was the big moment. I'm a huge fan of window seats. I never need to get up to use the restroom and like that I have a public side towards the middle, and private towards the window and can stare out that window the entire flight. I love geography and trying to figure out exactly where I am based on the rivers and mountains and at night I'm even good at figuring it out based on the lights from the cities. I also like studying drainage patterns, patterns of farming, irrigation patterns, all that stuff. As soon as we were up and climbing, the single tears started. I just stared out that window watching it all go away so fast. I really did NOT want to fly home. I had looked into the train but it was so expensive. No wonder we don't have a good train system in this country. So flight it was and I felt like the journey was just being ripped away from me. It just zoomed by and got left below and I was forced into this new bubble of reality. My parents were there at the airport to pick me up with a big sign. I had to get THEIR attention. I think I just looked so weird they glazed over me coming down the escalator. The heat outside at 9 at night was not horrible by Austin August standards, but certainly not what I have been used to the last five months. I drank everything in with new eyes. It was the same old everything but I saw things differently. The next few days, although great seeing friends and family, were not my favorite. I went into a little depression that was hard to shake. My rhythm was off. Used to getting up every morning and having my poptarts and packing up my house, and knowing where everything goes in my bag was interrupted by driving my car (terrifying) and moving into friend's guestroom. I didn't like the feeling. Even though there was a million things to do to distract me - lots of friends to have lunch or drinks with, places to see, things to buy, I just was so sad to not be on that trail any more. I started wishing for it to be just a few weeks or a month longer. I wanted to see more. What was the rest of Maine like? What other hikers were still out there? What was the weather like? I immediately felt myself getting soft - eating too much, not exercising, not having the toughness that I had out there. When it rains now, I get inside quick. Out there, what are you going to do? You just try to find a way to enjoy it. If it rains hard again here, and I'm home, I think I might just go out and stand in it to get myself drenched again. Just so I remember the feeling. I hate that I've become disconnected so fast. Now I'm back in a rhythm. Albeit a bad one of watching too much TV and then going to happy hours, but I feel even that is ending soon. Not quite yet, still have a list of friends I need to have lunch with! And places to go and see. The depression has gone and the reality has sunk in of needing to work again. So I'm on it. I'm still enjoying my freedom though. What a great place to enjoy it! I've lived here in Austin most of my life and I can't imagine living somewhere that doesn't have so much activity. It's the norm here. Downtown is ALWAYS torn up because of new projects. I counted eight cranes working on new high rises yesterday. My first day back I happen to drive down Congress in the evening and over the bridge and there were the bats streaming out from underneath. There is so much new stuff everywhere. So much music. So many new people. I really do love it. My body though is going through some odd stuff. It's as if I tore it up horribly on the trail, and managed to motor through the pain only to have it manifest itself now. I still have a pretty severe hiker hobble in the morning and anytime I sit for longer than a half hour. My heels always hurt. Trying to get some exercise (and having one of my goals to run another marathon) I went down to the trail and started a run. I immediately felt it in my knees and couldn't take the pounding. I did a quick three miles and home. I noticed too how hard everything is here. Gone is the spongy bark of the spruce trees or the soft ground and now is the kind of prickly dry grass and tough gnarly oaks. I went back two days ago and decided just to walk the trail. I wanted to see the new boardwalk (great!) and did a 7 mile hike. It was awkward not having my pack or poles. The next morning, I woke up, walked towards the bathroom and some how injured my back! I've been suffering for two days. How can one do all that hiking, carry all that weight, and now do this. Have I gotten that soft that fast? I hate it. I worked so hard for this and will NOT let it get me. Right behind this house is the Barton Creek Greenbelt. I plan on getting my pack back out, getting new poles, and getting down in there to feel it all over again. I need the trail back. When I first finished I thought, well that's over, no need to do it again. Now, I already feel the pull of another trail. It's a long way out but maybe some day.