Dismissed
Six weeks ago I was laid off from my job as a data scientist. I felt totally surprised. Almost everyone I worked with gave me positive feedback, and several managers told me I was «doing everything right» to be successful at the company. I guess it didn’t matter, because six Wednesday mornings ago I was summoned to a conference room and given a very rehearsed and very awkward speech about how the company needed to downsize. Less than an hour later, I was coming home in the middle of the day with a box of random stationery and an office lamp in the back seat of my car.
I heard rumors that layoffs were coming, but I didn’t think there was any chance I would be included in them (remember all the positive comments I was getting?). The same morning the layoffs occurred, I was joking with a friend of mine that it wouldn’t be so bad if I got laid off because I could go do the PCT instead. Well, I guess the universe was listening and wanted to play a prank on me. When it happened I got angry, and then I pretended like I didn’t care, and then I started feeling like a loser. After a few days of lying on the couch feeling sorry for myself, I realized that I was going to follow through on what I told my friend. I was going to raise the PCT.
Is this preparation?
I hiked the Colorado Trail in 2023, so I wasn’t going to go into this completely green. I (for the most part) knew how this whole hiking thing worked. But the PCT is more than five times the length of the Colorado Trail, and that was intimidating. Plus, I didn’t have much time to prepare. I only had about a month to prepare. I needed to get a permit, create a budget, plan resupplies, upgrade my equipment, train my body, purchase insurance coverage, and a million other little things one should do before leaving the house for months. How was I going to do all that?
I didn’t achieve everything. I did a lot, but not everything. The truth is that I don’t know if I’m ready to finish this walk. The day after I decided to hike the trail, I got sick and spent a week in bed with a fever and a cold. Two weeks later I threw my back out like an old man. That took another nine days to overcome. A week and a half ago I was considering postponing the hike altogether for a chance to make some easy money as a contractor for my former employer, but the offer didn’t work out. Needless to say, the road to the start of the PCT has not been easy.
Enough to start
My partner and I spent the last two days driving to San Diego with our dog from our home in Boulder, Colorado. It was a nice trip, but one particular thought kept echoing in my mind: this doesn’t seem real. None of this seems real! The PCT has been a big dream on my mind for years, but it wasn’t supposed to happen yet! But here I am, sitting at a small table in a hotel room, typing on my laptop. I have wifi, air conditioning, running water and a comfortable bed. Tomorrow I will leave all of this behind to walk 2,655 miles through the wilderness. I’ll see if I’ve prepared enough to finish, but at least I’ve prepared enough to start.
If there’s one thing I learned from my hike along the Colorado Trail it’s this: things happen. Things happen and then you deal with them. And if you can deal with it successfully, it becomes something valuable. Sometimes it’s pride. Sometimes it’s a good story. Sometimes it’s a valuable lesson. Sometimes, if you pay close attention, it shows you a glimpse of who you really are. Whatever the result, it is worth the effort. Recently, a lot of things have happened in my life and I am doing my best to cope with them. I can’t say if any of that has transformed yet, but I choose to trust the process.
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