The small deaths of a hiker

I have never felt more like I was having an identity crisis than I do now. I’ve spent most of the last decade thinking about hiking, researching hiking, trying, failing, and succeeding at hiking. I’m struggling to cope with the fact that I spent six months walking 2,200 miles, but last week I barely managed a walk that lasted two hours.

What’s even scarier is that I then very easily posted a video of myself wandering around in the snow looking like I was having a great time, when in reality, I spent the entire time feeling immense fear and trying not to let the snot from my ugly cry harden on my face. Super cute, I know!

I’m sharing this because I don’t remember seeing or reading about other hikers struggling to get back on the trail or do a simple day hike. It made me feel a little crazy. A short walk made me call my mom crying, like: «I hate hiking now?! Did I ruin it? Will I go back to eating a Nerds Gummy Cluster in peace?»

Joking aside, I don’t think I’ll always feel this way. But that doesn’t change the fact that right now it feels like a small death that hiking, the thing that has always made me feel most alive, doesn’t bring me any joy. Again, this is not forever. but is now.

Preparing for an ending that I had not yet experienced

In true Haven style, before I even set foot on the trail, I was already thinking about how I would feel and how I would deal with the end. Some might say I experience a bit of existential dread. (Surprise, surprise!)

In recent years, hikers have been much more honest about the depression and sadness they face post-trail as they try to reintegrate into the routines of the lives they left behind. There was no shortage of alarmists about it along the way, but I was ready. I had a plan.

And honestly, after about a month at home, I was confused by how well I thought I was adjusting. People kept asking how I was doing and I almost felt guilty for not being… sadder? More distressed? Incredibly I lost my way, but the demands of life kept me distracted. I thought and talked about the trail daily, but it almost felt like I was talking about an experience completely foreign to me.

I was enjoying life as Haven while telling the stories of «Kaleidoscope», the name of my trail. Those parts of me felt so separate… until they didn’t.

The loneliest ridge line

The mountains have always been my safe place. I have spent years here tracing the spines of the White Mountains with my wandering feet. On all but a handful of occasions, I was alone, appreciating the solitude and time spent with myself while I processed and dreamed. So, returning to a place I loved, doing what I always did (walking alone), it felt totally normal… until I pulled into the parking lot and looked out at what should have been a beautiful ridge if it weren’t for the clouds.

At that moment the only thing I felt was sadness. It took me hours to get there, so I told myself I would at least do my best.

But with every step I took, my spirit became heavier and heavier. The floodgates to the “Kaleidoscope” compartment in my brain burst open, and for the first time, I felt the pain I had been avoiding for two months.

Nothing could have prepared me for how absolutely alone I feel knowing that I won’t be meeting any of my friends. I won’t hear Tracker tell the moss how beautiful he is or find Weast waiting with a hug and his glow. One-Speed ​​and Kowalski aren’t going to come out of nowhere at 100 mph and scare me while I’m filtering water. I won’t hear the sound of Quill’s audiobook floating in the ether, letting me know he’s nearby. The woods are desolate without Spig and Lady Bug’s infectious laughter.

As if that weren’t enough, I can’t even describe how annoying It feels like a day hike after walking with that purpose for so many months. Like… what do you mean I go and come back? So that?? My day walk basically represented what I used to do before the first and second breakfasts.

The hardest part to name

I’m struggling to assimilate to Haven who liked to walk for the sake of it. The trail rewires your brain, because let me tell you, “liking hiking” is not enough to keep your heart and mind locked into the magnitude of a hike. My brain is still programmed for endurance and purpose beyond simply enjoying a long walk.

For the sake of a greater goal and greater fulfillment, I learned to walk even if I didn’t feel like it, and the complexity of that leaves me wanting to: just taste Hiking doesn’t satisfy me right now.

Not even her beauty was enough to dispel the concern. The reality is that no day hike will feel like The Trail; there really is no substitute. It seems like I hate hiking, but the truth is that I miss the trail so much that anything to remind me that I’m No Staying on top of him feels like a punch in the gut. And nothing is more painful than being back in the woods where I once wandered with friends as a version of myself that I loved deeply and will never be again.

What comes after the little deaths

In the end, there is no “solution.” There is no magical moment when who I was before the path and the Haven I am now suddenly merge.

There is only the possibility of returning to the forest, even if they mention the pain of losing the trail, because my desire to simply exist in the forest is what brought me to the Appalachian Trail in the first place and introduced me to the friends whose ghosts make it difficult to return. And what a privilege it is to know souls worth losing.

Maybe my complicated feelings about hiking seem like a small death because hiking contains the life and memories of a dream I had for 13 years and will never have the same way again. Before the tour, I felt a strange pain as I separated from the version of myself that had dreamed of this for so long. Even then I knew I would never meet that version of myself again.

I’m grateful for Haven who held on to this dream year after year with bold optimism, even when, on multiple occasions, things seemed to fall apart around her. Who found herself again and again, centered by the call of the path in her spirit like a guiding north star. And again I face a small death: I will never be or know the version of myself. in trace again.

These small deaths are the price we pay for a life of dreams fulfilled: to make room for the lives of who we are becoming.

I was hoping to meet this version of myself. And here she is! You may be struggling to find balance between life and the road right now, but you will do it.

In my first blog before the trail, I wrote: This is my toast to Haven who longed for it and to Haven who will live for it.

I make a toast again:

To all the versions of me that have died so that this one can live to die another day.

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