Island Park to Anaconda: My Era of Justin

As someone who grew up in the era of Britney and Justin’s romances, I suppose it is inevitable for me to try to live my own fantasy of power, just to meet double ratings and misogyny. In an ode to the ridiculous of everything, I will refer to the last more than 400 miles with a Thruhiker of the same name as my «Era of Justin». Not to put them completely in explosion, I will not imagine them here.

Joining the club

Attracted by the idea of ​​another through my rhythm (approximately 30 miles of days), which appeared on their social networks to be respectful and fun (well and attractive), I committed what I feel to be a cardinal sin. I did Caketop … Upside down. Yes, to let that boy reach me and hang out with him at the Sawello Resort, I finished my early day and I turned around the end of the 10 -mile earth path that I had just climbed. We drank beer, talked and hydromassage cannons. This was against everything he had learned not to do, and involved trusting a hiker in a way he had never granted to anyone through. But I had been sending messages and laughing with them, and finally it was my heart that replaced my head. And, to myself, it was quite intelligent to ensure a good hiking companion for the rest of the path.

Magic toxic pools

«Are you going to wait for him there?» Asked the couple who took me to the end of the road the next day. «Ha! No, he can catch me in Lima,» I replied with certainty. But … I waited for it. At the end of a day, sending text messages and walking with the partner, he was vertiginous enough to accept a 20 -mile day. Also agreeing the dry camp, I agreed to meet it in some beautiful mining pools for dinner. It was speculated that they are as toxic as our last day together, but I’m not there yet.

«I appreciate that you have been an open book. I have only read some pages of that book, but I really enjoyed what I have read so far,» he sent me a text message while danced by the crest, music flying in the golden extension. His words that day stimulated the romantic in me and felt like a damn exciting princess waiting for those glorious pools. I dropped into that. In Orange Firey’s sunset that night and in the depths of getting in love with this new vibrant person.

The performance

The insects, the motels with old towels for curtains, the smoked ridges, the cross country alternate … all were more fun with him. Yes, of course, I am in love with these things independently. That’s why I’m on my way after all. But there was something about his sense of humor and the seemingly relaxed attitude that simply clicks mine, and the miles melted in a different way. He laughed with me instead of judging me for my eccentric, and I cannot say that there is a much better feeling in the world than feeling and accepted.

However, one questions, if it was more performance than integrity. Again and again, when I let people enter and show them the real self, not only the «rogue» of hard shell, I meet the people who had read the situation badly. Choosing misunderstanding instead of asking more questions, these people often discard me. People tend to think that I am a strong and independent woman who conquers the path and does not have a vast deposit of emotions or dimensions ready to spill if they hit me. I am a complicated person in many ways: both romantic and realistic, a small town girl with the lust of a girl in the city for exploration, a worker and an academic, a mountain girl with a love for the ocean in which I grew up swimming. Follow and continue from there. However, enough about my social problems, now to the part of the story where the shit really hits the fan. I have to laugh now because it was very bad.

Cry Me A River

«I will need some ibuprofen,» I shouted at his store at the gray morning sunrise. I woke up with a terrible headache and fatigue, attributing it to the evil smoke of the forest fire that had been established in the previous afternoon. I took the 200 mg red pill and took myself out of my store. However, he did not help. Upon reaching the little and dusty city of Wisdom, Mt through Hitchhike, I wanted to go to bed in the grass and never go up again. After taking a diurnal allergy pill and an additional ibuprofen, I still didn’t feel better and demotivated me even walking down the street from the market to the bar and pizzeria. My stomach sinking to the idea of ​​cutting our planned town day, I finally said that I needed to rest and stay in the city that night.

When we registered and took the maximum dose of ibuprofen, I had a hit pain hit and my nerves in my body hurt so much that I did not want to move. Had the forest fire smoke caused the symptoms of fibromyalgia that I used to get while recovering from my car accident? I was so confused for how sick I felt.
Returning to the path in mid -morning the next day, I was still in the maximum ibuprofen and taking out the bottom of my mental well reserves to put each foot in front of the other. My head hit, my miserable stomach and I felt that I wanted to shout. I really felt really crazy. And that was when I realized that my sudden symptoms should be nothing more than that wonderful moment of the month that prepares me for a visit.

Two days and almost 60 miles later, the second day included more than 8,000 miles of this (proud of that), I was starting to feel a little healthier and perhaps I would return to my usual self the next morning. Then I suddenly woke up at 1 in the morning with a desperate impulse to leave my store. And that was when it all started. Literally.

Ending the mission

I was honest that third morning that had been awake throughout the night, I no longer had control of my intestines or my strength. It was really horrible. I felt completely destroyed in saying that I was going to a kind of evacuation day for the road of the road and not the day of mile that I wanted desperately after feeling so sick. He was understanding, telling me to take my time and even take my bear can to save me some weight in the middle of the day. I felt extremely proud of myself and very embarrassed when we arrived in Anaconda that afternoon. I was in such a difficult way and began to feel that I would never feel better. I really hoped that our hiking association would not end, because I couldn’t keep up.

My mother offered a free hotel in Butte, MT, which was already on its way to Bozeman airport, we would leave the next day for one of my best friend’s weddings in California. Yes, a joke had become him really agreeing to be the wedding date and I was on the moon. We had talked about the friends I would know, my house and my kittens that I could show him, Markleeville’s characters that he would know.

And then we did a bad and horrible three -hour fingering to Butte, I released it in the bathroom every time on the road. Truly a worse nightmare scenario for anyone who travels with a crush. Finally, we ended up in a truck with a man who had just left a hard work day and had already opened a high can. Once again, I felt bad for feeling that I was dragging it through a horrible path experience instead of magic that day.

During these days unbearably painful and mentally horrible during which I managed to maintain an appearance of normality that in his presence had mentioned the issue of whether we would be more than friends in the future. I responded with the best answers I could gather, trying to express how excited it was for him and how the geographical aspect of us was, since we were installed in cities of different states. I secretly hoped that he already asked me to be his girlfriend and tell me that we would solve him. Rationally I told him that I should think more, if we should be just friends or not. Think it. And that’s where we had left it when I walked away in a deep sleep hole in my big and comfortable hotel bed.

Wolves with sheep clothes

I woke up just before listening to the hotel door, and I shouted to wait for him to join him for breakfast. Complete backpack and on, I didn’t realize until after having been slipping away. I was rescuing. When walking together, on flights and wedding, on us. Only then, one hour before we leave, he looked at my face at breakfast and told me that he would not come with me. I took my dish and returned to the room, without even bothering to respond to such a crazy statement.

I proceeded to sob and throw my things instead. I couldn’t believe I had been so betrayed, so blind. I couldn’t believe that I would have let me be so natural, so weak. But it hadn’t been, he had just left an open discussion.

Opening good things is always incredibly vulnerable, and I have to remember that there are still those good. When I cross with those people, it is the most magical and fortuitous feeling. I will never let anyone, no matter how malicious they are, take that opening. But for now, this is a reminder that there are too many wolves in sheep’s clothes, and we must keep our limits in such a way that they never really catch us.

Greetings to face my final fears and make the rest of the last alone alone (it can occur crying). I come for you Montana 🖤