Into the Eye
Yesterday morning, I woke up with a disoriented jolt to sunlight already streaming through a hotel room window in South Carolina. I tapped the face of my phone (still cracked from a tumble down Mt. Garfield in the Whites,) and it obliged and glowed with the time. 7:30. We needed to be on the road at 7:30. I rolled over and woke up my partner, already feeling rushed, but excited, and strangely calm at the same time.
This was our last day of driving, and then my favorite part of moving - the unpacking, the settling in - would start tomorrow.
But until then, it would be more of the same.
Each day since September 24th, the day before I finished my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, had been a blinding whirlwind of activity. On the 24th, I hiked the entire day and into the night, then slept for a few hours. On the 25th, I woke up at 2:30AM to hike the approach, ascent, and descent of Katahdin. Those 48 hours were by far the most grueling, rewarding, terrifying, and empowering days on trail, and I will be sharing more details on my Trek blog soon!
After I descended Katahdin on the 25th, my partner scooped me up at Katahdin Stream Campground, and we drove an hour into the night to make it to Monson, ME.
On the 26th, we purposefully took a slow day, meandering around Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park before driving south.
The 27th and 28th were long driving days. We tracked alongside the Appalachian Trail on our drive south, crisscrossing it in Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania before veering east to make our way to Wilmington, NC. It was strangely disorienting to go back to places I’d walked past only weeks or months ago. To see white blazes and, rather than following them deeper into the woods, turning from the trail to climb back into a car and drive south instead of walking north.
On the 29th, we took one day to rest in Wilmington before a 6AM flight the next morning. On the 30th, we woke up to torrential rain and wind as hurricane-turned-tropical-storm Ian swirled up the coast. We sprinted through driving, sideways rain to make it to our terminal, and watched the sun rise from the airplane just before touching down in Atlanta for our connecting flight. Then, we took a short flight into Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to load all my things into a Uhaul and caravan back to Wilmington with a friend who (luckily) happened to be moving the same weekend.
Today is the first day that no travel is on the menu. The first full day at home - my new home - in Wilmington, North Carolina. Sure, I have to unpack all of my things, then compare my things to my partner’s things and debate on whose things get to take a trip to Goodwill, but I clearly found my laptop and my charging cable, so some headway is being made there.
It’s a beautiful day in Wilmington, and we started the morning off with a good 5-mile walk, followed by breakfast downtown (not wanting to add dirty dishes to the moving chaos in our apartment is an excellent excuse to eat out.)
For most of the day, my partner and I have been playing a rousing game of furniture Tetris. Our apartment is small, with adjoining rooms circling the entryway, so moving large pieces of furniture involves backing half of whatever-we’re-moving into one room, then executing an 18-point turn to get it in its final resting place in another room.
Finding a Calm Center
I haven’t really had the time to process the end of the hike. I had quite a few tears to shed on my summit day, but since then, I’ve kept myself busy, occupied, purpose-driven. I’m sure that storm will come, but for now, I’ve settled into a calm center. Here, in the eye of that storm, I’m noticing the changes that my thru-hike has given me.
I’m normally very anxious when moving, but found something steady within me and held onto it. We unloaded my things onto the sidewalk and up the narrow stairs to our walk-up apartment in record time. Boxes that were unmanageably heavy when I loaded them into my storage unit six months ago were still heavy, but manageable as we carried them up the stairs. The changes are subtle, but they are definitely there. I’m mentally and physically stronger than I was before. But I don’t feel like a different person at all. It is possible to feel somehow more like yourself?
Keep an Eye Out for Future Posts!
I’m hoping to get back to my Trek posts for Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine later this week, so keep an eye out!
I’ll be emailing updates more regularly now, so if you’re on the list, you’ll be the first to know. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so by filling out the form below.
Thanks for reading!
