The Waiting – The Trek

Well shit goddamn! First post for the Trek! And the second word was profanity! Start as you mean to go on, I guess. 

With just over three weeks to go before I get on my flight to LA (and then a bus and then a walk and then a hotel and then a trip to REI and then a shuttle), I wanted to smash out my first post, for various reasons, ranging from pretentious to practical: to make sure I don’t accidentally fall on my keyboard and publish it in Wingdings, to record some profound (tbc) thoughts pre-PCT, and also to publish something coherent before trail brain kicks in. Judging from some of the unhinged things I wrote down (and texted people) during my thru of the Long Trail last year, there’s definitely a negative correlation between living off packs of Tuna Sensations and verbal eloquence. So for posterity, I wanted to get something on the internet before my intelligence takes a nosedive. That, and the fact that all there is between now and May 3rd is The Waiting.

My sister, who is 8.9999999 months pregnant (due tomorrow, to be precise), and I have this wild card theory that there are a lot of unlikely similarities between preparing for a baby and preparing for a thru hike. 

1. Neither of us have any idea what we’re doing.
2. Both of us are aware that there is nothing that can actually prepare us for what the next few months will bring.
3. We both need to stay TF away from Reddit.

Look, I love Reddit. Reddit is single-handedly responsible for every single item in my backpack. It’s also responsible for my decision, at various points over the last couple months, to remove every one of those items (including, in no particular order, camp shoes, headlamp, beanie, my literal tent) and then return them to my pack. And hey, no shade if you’ve done without those things. What do I know right now? Catch me at Kennedy Meadows upending my pack into a hiker box and heading into the Sierra with only my wits for company. But there is such a thing as too much advice. It’s hardly a hot take to say that on Reddit you can find someone who will support whatever argument you want to hear at that given moment, and right underneath find someone else refuting it. Probably because there is no one correct way to do anything, let alone anything as batshit as walking through the wilderness for six months, or producing a human. But the problem is I’ve got three weeks of The Waiting left, and f all else to do but question every decision I’ve made so far. You’d think I’d be using this time to enjoy the things I’ll shortly be deprived of, like wine, showering, using UK vernacular instead of cosplaying as an American, wine, fruit that’s isn’t freeze dried, wine. Etc. But nope! It’s just doomscrolling.

Problem is, once The Waiting is over, then comes The Walking. And who the hell knows how that’s going to go?

It’s wild (heh, the thing that started it all) to think that a month ago I was wrangling with someone on Facebook marketplace over a sleeping bag, that two months ago I was refreshing Skyscanner hoping that the prices I was seeing were some kind of glitch in the Matrix, that three months ago I was trying to sell my unimpressive wardrobe on Vinted so I could afford alpine sunglasses, that four months ago I was standing in line at the US embassy for my visa appointment, trying not to palpably tremble. And now I’ve only got six days left at work, three weeks left in London, and a pack full of equipment that I barely know how to use. It sure is light though. Thanks Reddit.

And yet through it all, over and above The Waiting, is unparalleled, knee jiggling, teeth chattering excitement. In three weeks I’ll be taking my first steps on the PCT. In six weeks I’ll be waking up not to the ambient sounds of ambulance sirens but to birds and wind and coyotes (and other hikers snoring, probably). In two months I’ll smell like a flaming pile of garbage. There’s so much to look forward to. Just gotta wait it out. I think I heard something about good things coming to those who do? Idk, maybe I’m misremembering.

Pray for me!

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