CDT Day 1 (5/19/23)
Miles 0-23.1 (23.1 miles)
Verbatim
I sobbed when L dropped me off. She said I was her role model. I’m not sure what that means but it felt intensely powerful. Life with L is so sweet. It makes the sting of her leaving me ——————— unbearable at times. It’s hard for me to imagine ————. —————————————————. —————————. I was angry for six miles of walking. Then I sobbed while walking for two miles straight. The cry was cathartic. That makes three serious cries about L. One my last day home, one when dropped off and I mourned what hiking costs, and now one while walking.
I’m the only one out here. The registers say the last person to start started two days ago. I wonder how long it will take me to catch them, and longer still to form some connections with other hikers.
I’ve waited a long time to be out here. I can remember wake-dreaming about getting to this point on the couch in Portland after L left me. L left two notes today. One said she loves me for my heart, and that she will celebrate wherever it leads me. I wonder where my heart will go.
Post Note
It’s 7:30 pm on a dark night in December. As soon as I started to read my journal my mind went “oh fuck.” I suppose that reaction is a good indication of why I’m here to write. It was a heavy enough summer to merit a lot of grief, a lot of tears, and a lot of “fuck you’s.” I’m remembering now how out of control it all felt. Life was out of control. Love was out of control. I thought the discipline of walking would bring control, but my mind, heart, soul, gut, body, whatever was still vulnerable to the chaos of emotions like anger, grief, shame, and anxiety. Is anxiety an emotion? Or maybe more like a sort of acid which curdles whichever flavor of “emotion” you’re experiencing.
The beginning of this 2023 CDT trip was a re-walk. I’d been to this terminus before in 2022, hoping to complete the trail that summer so I could be thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2023 instead. So, I knew the Hatchets by my side. I knew the water caches. I knew I’d take the blue line on the road walk along which Raider and I had camped the year before. I knew I’d get to Lordsburg and check for a pinking grasshopper in the all you can eat salad bar before eating my “haystack” of brussel sprouts. With this familiarity I felt confident I’d feel comfortable. But damn, those emotions hit hard. It would be the first of many moments on the CDT where I walked with my arms wrapped around my gut, hunched over, screaming “Fuck you!” to the bushes and trees. I later expressed embarrassment to a mentor, Phillip, that I was so verbally violent. I hated that I was so volatile, and was terrified it was becoming a part of me. Phillip just responded, “The bushes and trees can take it.” At least that’s what I remember of our conversation now.
But really, inside, I knew that however much I was mad at another, I was angry at myself. The trauma caused me revealed my own shame about the trauma I’d caused another. The knowledge that whatever had been done to me I’d done pretty much the same thing to someone else tore me apart. I hadn’t made the same choices. But, I can imagine the pain I’d caused was similar to the pain I felt. And so, whatever I hated about L I hated about myself. And whatever I had to work through about L I had to work through about myself. And so through my perception of another I beheld the asshole of myself.