What option do I have but to walk?

I moved to Philadelphia 5 years ago (5 years exactly on the start date of my walk)! I’ve grown up a lot in Philadelphia. I’ve achieved major milestones there: first big girl job, first time living away from my family for a long time, finding an NFL team to pledge my allegiance to (GO BIRDS), breakups, new relationships, breakups again, first house (first non-mobile home since my store was my first home), training my dog, doing comedy and shows, making new friends, cooking and hosting Thanksgiving for 4 years in a row, etc. I am very grateful and proud of all this. Philadelphia will mean a lot to me forever.

But I always had it in my head that I shouldn’t get too comfortable. I never wanted things to be too perfect. Which is good because they never are. I wanted to learn how to build a life from nothing and allow myself to absorb as much as I could, but I didn’t want to put down roots so deep that I couldn’t dig them up and go achieve my dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail.
But in reality, there is no good time to make the leap from real life to wildlife. My best guess is that I should hit the trail when I’m ready to move on to the next chapter of my life. Do you want to quit your job? Good time to walk. No relation? No children? Good time to walk. Do you want to try a new city? It is best to walk between movements.

It is not a duty, but a must

But it became clear (after my therapist explicitly pointed it out to me) that hiking would not only be “good” between life chapters, but it wouldn’t allow me to move on to the next phase if I hadn’t hiked.
I need to walk to be able to move forward with my life. If I’m having a bad day at work and someone suggests, “How about you try looking for another job?” I was like, «No, I can’t do that. Because if I love my next job, I won’t want to quit, and if I don’t want to quit, I won’t follow the path.» If I say I’m lonely and someone asks me «why don’t you try dating? Look what’s out there!» I told them: «I can’t fall in love right now! I don’t want anyone to become important enough to me and complicate the journey or make me doubt it even for a second.» But as the years go by, I feel like thinking about the next chapters. I don’t want to feel prevented from dreaming about a new job, a new city or a new love relationship. I need to walk so I can be open to the next big event in my life. Not only do I have to walk in order to live, but I also have to walk in order to die, because I often say that “I can’t die until I’ve hiked the Appalachian Trail.”

Although I have wanted to raise the AT since I first learned about it in high school, and although I will not allow myself to move on to the next phase of life, I admit that I am afraid to learn what it feels like to transform a major life goal into a major life achievement. Will I feel proud? Accomplished? Satisfied? Aimless? No goals? Empty? I don’t know! I’ll update you in 6 months! But I do know that I would rather overcome the pain of having to discover my next goal than continue living with the fear of never achieving my current one. And with that said, see you on the road!

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