Sparks of hope

I know it shouldn’t hurt to get out of bed
The buttons on my shirt come undone, weigh me down like they’re made out of lead
I think I’m getting worse, I don’t remember happy
And all I wanna do is sleep until I forget

“Anything Can Happen” – The Tors

I had a panic attack before we came on trail. It caught me in the stairwell at work, stopping me short in my tracks as the air fled my lungs. I sat there on the steps, hoping no one else would choose that moment to walk past, trying to regain a semblance of control again.

I cried that night at my friend’s house where I was staying the weekend, unable to sleep. If I couldn’t make it through a day at work, how was I supposed to make it through an entire six months hiking a trail that a notorious 75-80% people never finish?

When I first started struggling with anxiety attacks and my negative coping mechanisms, I remember the spiraling descent into helplessness, emerging on the other side of an anxiety or panic attack wondering: am I going to be like this forever?

I know it isn’t much, but I slept through the night
I opened up my curtains so I’d hear the birds, get a taste of the light
I think I’m getting better, even if it’s slowly
I’m not in a rush to get anywhere fast

“Anything Can Happen” – The Tors

I slept in a parking lot last night. After 8 pm, the small town slowed down. The parking lot emptied and it was just us: the white rain fly stretched above my mat and Stealth’s cowboy camp a few feet away. The biking path that led into town emptied into the grass where we pitched. Should be fine, we thought, pitching camp by the park. Hopefully will be fine, we shrugged, and went to sleep. It’s amazing how many less things you care about after hiking 27 miles in a day.

At some point through the night, I thought about her, the old Sparks from a couple months ago. She’d been learning a lot before coming on trail, it’s true. Learning about spiraling thoughts, capturing them, reframing them, taming them. Learning about adrenaline and anxiety and how the human body sets up defense mechanisms, learning about stopping attacks before they got beyond control, learning about telling the mind it’s okay, we’re okay in a way it understands.

Even still, that Sparks would never have thrown her mat out on the edge of a parking lot, rolled her face away from the light, and slept.

Be the person that your eight-year-old and 80-year-old self would be proud of.

Unknown

Church Mouse and I are currently two-thirds done with the trail, having just passed 1,500 miles of hiking. That’s right: We’ve hiked 1,500 miles, which is further than both Bilbo Baggins, and Frodo and Sam on their respective journeys. (Top that, hobbits.) In a day, we’ll reach Massachusetts. In less than 700 miles, we’ll reach Katahdin.

As I look back on each individual day, there’s not a specific place or way I can see specific growth. But as I look back on who I was when I started and who I am now, it’s clear: I’ve changed.

And how could I not have? As I look back on the two-thirds of the trail that we’ve done, I can’t help but laugh. The situations that have become normal to me are ones that pre-trail Sparks never would have imagined, perhaps even crazy.

Huddled in a pit toilet to escape the icy rain. Calling my HR department under the shadow of the Washington Memorial. Learning how to forge a knife from a Bavarian as we walk down a sloping mountain trail. Screaming into the wind atop an icy Clingman’s Dome. Clambering over boulders as ice falls around us. Sleeping on Virginia’s wide balds, next to a train track near Boiling Springs, in a shed transformed into a shelter behind someone’s house, on the front lawn of a motel next to the highway.

Trail magic, in all of its magical forms: a burger, hot dogs, a ride to town, $20 pressed into our hands for a meal in town, Snickers left in a bag near the trailhead, a warm blanket and a place to sit in the rain. Eating meals in a bathroom. Showering in a waterfall. Collecting water out of tiny pipes and streams and puddles. Swinging in a hammock under the wild stars listening to The Inheritance Cycle on audiobook.

I can see the end of this journey now, dimly. Enough so that my thoughts have been slowly circling to the prospect of returning home, re-entering civilization. I’ll be honest: I’m a little scared. I’m scared to stop moving, scared of losing the strength I’ve built up after walking day after day. I’m scared of losing the friends I’ve made.

But more, I’m scared of losing the person I’ve become, that the Sparks I am now will falter as I reenter the same circles and cycles I left behind. I’m scared of sitting again in a stairwell at work, again fighting off mounting anxiety, ragged breathing, a panic attack caused by a glitching fight-or-flight system. I haven’t had a single anxiety or panic attack on trail; how easily will they return once I’m back home?

Yet, as I worry about these things, I feel a peace: the cool breeze rushing over my face, the leaves crunching under my feet, the twitching nose of a chipmunk. “Let tomorrow worry about itself,” I hear in the silence, Christ’s words clear.

The trail has tested and tried me, forged me, built me, shaped me. The hardest is still to come. This Sparks was hard fought for, and I’m confident she’ll still be there when I go home.

But not too soon. There’s still four states and 700 miles left. There’s still plenty of trail left and plenty of adventures to be had.