An opportunity for redemption: why am I doing the long path

This piece is both summary and history. It is an explanation of the reasons why I have decided to embark on a long path through a walk, none of which can be told without understanding the story of a trail of trails of the beads that put everything in motion. My long path of path began on August 2, 2025, so these pieces are being written now that I have returned, except for it, which was written and mostly written before my departure. Keep in mind that this essay makes some sincere mentions of mental health and self -harm.

I can barely walk, my quads announce their fury of the 10 mile walk yesterday through the steep peak full of granite near my house in Utah. This was the «training» attempt of my partner and my partner for our long path through next week.

I know I could be screwed. And I don’t care. I am ready to go.

But it is not exempt from trepidation. I have sitting sedentary on a desk, managing my main work and two lateral bustle as a death year and a editor. In my imminent absence, my clients are concerned, especially Those that I am supporting through pain. I am worried about my body, worried that my sporadic training sessions will not be enough to resist trekking all day through the steep green mountains.

Ironic that I worry so much when only a few months ago, I was anxiously telling the days. The first half of 2025 was wrapped in a lethargy fog, as if he were waiting for the year. I couldn’t wait to leave Dodge and return to the mountains where he belonged.

Now that it is almost for the time, suddenly I doubt the small routines and the community that I have cultivated. Moving from such stability is a marked contrast to the circumstances that led to my trail of the 900 miles to the trails in 2022.

Three years ago, the decision to walk Maine was essentially taken for me, mi (apparently) idyllic life collapsing following the words: «I need a break.» Later I discovered that my then partner requested that separate time to be able to go out with a woman who met in Bumble, writing messages while snuggling in bed with me. When I took my first tremor steps on the path in West Virginia, I had no idea what would happen: on the way or later with us.

It was not long before I fell in love with the rhythm of the life of the hiker, the middle Atlantic says a stripe of sheets that I sailed in my new legs of the path. And then I hit Vermont.

Through Miles and the dead set in Katahdin, I pushed much beyond my physical and mental advantage. I was in a fog so, I barely remember any of that. I don’t know how we got food or in which cities we stopped. My normally meticulous hiking diary is a dazzling target.

Although I missed normal food and did not smell of urine and sweat, I missed my then partner, the magnetic pull of our bruise relationship to return and forgive everything. To put the parts of me that had released on the way back into exile where I had languished for five years. Being the meek and complacent companion who constantly «died at their own needs» in a devotee of his support.

I know now: the impulse to leave the way and return to my partner was not love: it was a itching in co -dependent that I longed to scratch. It was, in retrospect, similar to the yearning I felt when I used to cut myself on purpose, using self -linges to stop the desire to finish my life, when the depression was rooted in the darkest crack of my soul.

In the end, I didn’t get out of the way. What I did Do it was to give up Katahdin, deciding to free the control that I loved so tight. Although the rest of my walk (particularly through the White Mountains of New Hampshire) it was impressive, Vermont is still a dark spot that married the trip.

This, above all, is the reason why I need to return. I need to try me again. I need to know if I could have handled Vermont, I even enjoyed it, if it weren’t for the unconscious desire to continue damaging myself by throwing everything good.

This time, I will try the 272 full miles of Long Trail, which contains approximately 172 miles more than the AT. Duplicate the Vermont, double the fun. To do even more interesting things, it is said that these additional miles are significantly more challenging than in the portion.

Back to the state that broke me feels like redemption: a second chance to experience something that should never have surrendered. And when I step on that worn -up path once again, I will not be alone.

On a calm June night during my walk, a friendly, dumb and sunchine-human stumbled on the camp in Hiker Midnight.

I learned three things the next morning: 1. I had no idea; 2. I was trying to get to Katahdin like me; 3. It was very, very handsome.

Although none of us was looking for romance remotely, we connected again after walking together for 600 miles. Then we decided to give love a chance, despite the fact that my heart, mistreated after fearing my security following the catastrophic rupture of my ex, worried that it was too soon. Then we moved around the country to Utah. Then we rent a small sweet condominium where we have been happy during the last two years. As one does.

When we recently started, my partner sent a text message: «Maybe we will do the long trail together.» The innocent joke gave birth to an idea that never died.

We made plans last year, but we decided against the eleventh hour: he had recently achieved a new job and could not leave so soon after being hired.

So this year is our shot. We have taken the free month and we have given a deadline of three weeks.

With family visits stacked for the last week of August, we will have to adhere to our loose Million Plan. I am nervous about that, since the deadlines are what fell me in the AT.

Not to mention that the last time my partner and I got back in the trail, it was like new friends, not lovers. There were no expectations. How will we fix ourselves in the same small tent for three weeks every night? Will you feel suffocated by me? Or for him? Secretly, I also worry about all this.

Next week, I will discover it. I will discover if my unprepared body will remain free of injury; If my partner and I can resist the evidence that inevitably arise from an extended incursion in the forest; If we can walk to Canada. Maybe Vermont is as hard and infernal as my irregular memory remembers. Or maybe it’s something completely different.

Maybe it’s somewhat beautiful.

Anyway, I will catch them on the other side.

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