Date: 2004-09-10
From: Thistle Hill Shelter

To: Hanover, NH
Miles today: 14.6
Weather: overcast clouds

We woke up eary this morning, trying to get into Hanover before dark. We're staying at my brother's house, or the house where he used to live. We still weren't sure if they knew we were coming so we wanted to get there as soon as possible. I also had a mail drop to pick up in West Hartford, another town the trail went through. We got there at just before twelve, hoping that the post office wouldn't close for lunch until noon but they closed at eleven-thirty, opening again at one so we had to hang out until then. Fortunately a trail angel named PattyO was there, and he gave us sodas and snacks and we talked for awhile about all the thru-hikers we knew in common. He had been doing magic up and down the trail for about a month, which, unfortunately, we had missed. He promised us that he'd hit us in Maine--we'll see. We're not exactly moving very fast. He was drving another thru-hiker named Skinny around. He promised us a ride to our friends' house in Hanover and ended up successfully meeting us there, but in the meantime I had yet another mini-breakdown. We picked up my mail drop and my Mom had enclosed a sweet little letter, as usual, which for some reason really got to me. She had also bought us some great new socks at a really low price and was so proud of herself and of me. She said, "Be careful on all these ridges and rocks..." I know all of my family is worried about me out here but to have it so tangibly expressed after so few days back on the trail really broke me up. My friend Kimberlee had also put a card in this mail drop, with a picture of my friend Heidi and me at a Chinese New Year party this year, and a quote from Rudyard Kipling that said, "If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says: "Hold on!" I sat on a bench outside the general store in West Hartford and started crying. We sorted through my mail drop and started walking and I was still crying for miles up the trail. Eventually I had to stop and sit and County consoled me. I wondered for the umpteenth time why I was doing this, why, especially today, I had insisted on separating myself from the people who love me. Everyone out here has done that. For what? For some nebulous quest for self? Isn't it just a selfish thing to do? Maybe all of us out here are just lonely, selfish people with nothing better to do. Maybe we are. I got over my fit of depression, but I still wonder if I was right. I talked to my Dad about it later, and he said that we all do things that are selfish. I suppose that's comforting. It is something I needed to do. And now I need to finish, however I can. I am going to come away from this experience a different person, and I had to do it, whether or not it's selfish. It was necessary. I know that--I just forget it. The afternoon's hike was nice, after I cried myself out. I felt much better about everything. And PattyO met us at the road and gave us the three-mile hitch we needed and my sister had e-mailed my brother in San Diego who had e-mailed his friends in Hanover so they knew we were coming after all. Erik cooked us chicken for dinner and we watched the Yankees (love ya) and life is good again.