July 13, 2012.
Day: Off Trail Daily Miles: 0 Total Miles: 1864 Hours Hiking: 0
Listen to the audio journal above or Download July 13th Audio File Here
July 13th, I'm back in California. I'm
driving down to San Francisco. I spent about 13 hours yesterday
driving. This is just an update on how I've been feeling and such. I
don't know, last night I started thinking about stuff and I really...my mind, just feels numb. Physically my body hurts a bit. I
don't have a whole lot of energy. I've been eating more or less
without thinking. If there is food available, I just throw it into my
mouth unconsciously. I'm like 'why did I just eat half of the bag of
chips when I only thought about having a handful or two.."
*laughs* Stuff like that. My knees hurt, my right knee especially,
but it was actually hurting me on trail, so that no
surprise...there's something going on with that. I'm a little
hesitant to take big steps even with my own weight, because I know
it's going to hurt. Maybe 1 in 50 steps it will hurt, so my body is
weary of them. I did 10 push ups the other day, which I was quite
surprised that I could still do 10!, but I'm actually sore from doing
just 10 push ups. So that's funny. The biggest thing I've noticed is
mentally I....I feel just mentally numb. I know I have been
suppressing...I haven't been thinking about much of ANYTHING for the
last 1.5 months, besides do the miles, get this done. It's been like
the one-track mind. I've been listening to audio books and completely
not using my mind, how about that. So, it feels numb and thinking
about 'my life', what I'm going back to and things...it feels like
I've forgotten all the little details, which isn't bad, it kind of
feels like this clean slate where I just have the feeling where I'm
like ' I should....I can go do anything..I can start anew'. It's kind
of a strange feeling, it feels nice, you know all of these little
details and things, little nagging things you think about are just
gone. So I have this fairly strong urge or feeling to just go in a
completely different direction with my life and I don't have a clue
where that is...I don't know what I want to do at all, I mean I'm
kind of living day to day right now. So like planning stuff...yeah, I
don't want to plan anything at the moment. It's umm, it's really
strange, I didn't expect this. But, at the same time, when you're set
on something for 1.5 months and completely working yourself into the
ground and life goes from living in the corner of suburbia
preparing...trying to think of every single detail that could
possibly go wrong so that you have a smooth hike to all your goal is
for the day is to hike 40-some-odd miles, find water and eat food.
Yeah, things get cut and life changes from highly complex to very
very simple... and I think that's the adjustment I'm trying to make
right now. I don't really remember it taking much or being hard last
time, but last time I had things to do right away, already planned
out - going to the southwest for a week with my girlfriend and
another 4 days off then I was flying to New Zealand to help my friend
do field work. So within 3 weeks of finishing the trail last time in
2009, I was doing stuff. I had no recovery time. And now that I have
recovery time, I've taken this week off, I've got all my panoramas
stitched together and just hanging out and doing nothing, it's really
strange. This hike was definitely more intestthan my 2009 one,
and...umm...I don't know, I just feel numb and dead. *laughs* Like I
don't really have feelings towards any one thing. It's kind of like
'ahh whatever, I could do that, I could do this...I don't know what I
want to do'..But I don't want to do what I was doing...how about
that. That's about as much as I know right now. Which doesn't mean
that I don't want to go back to Colorado..it just means I just want
to try something new and venture off in some other direction, which
I've said like 5 times, but in slightly different ways, so I'm going
to stop talking about it. It's one of those things that I didn't
expect, but feels strange but good that I'm actually feeling it. So
that's how it goes.
July 13 – Off Trail
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| Feet up with the view of Diamond Lake on my last day on trail, |
Addition
July 13th again. It...I have, these
weird... because I've been so independent and umm... you know
basically by myself with no one to really hike with for the last 1.5
months, I have this another strong urge to just go hang out in the
desert by myself again, to let myself readjust to stuff. That in
itself is unexpected. On trail you do get lonely. I can only assume
that I am wretchedly lonely right now, but it just doesn't come to
the surface. Every time you see a person {on trail} you stop and talk
with them for about 5 minutes. I think it's kind of strange that I'm
like 'all I want to do right now is get away...I don't want to go
into cities, I don't want to deal with people... I just want to go
somewhere and hang out...' The desert, the southwest somewhere, is
where I'd want to do it, besides it being bloody hot right now. But
in another vein, I kind of feel like what the hell am I doing with my
life...jack shit... what's this whole earning money thing and well I
just hiked for 1.5 months to try and break a record and you know I'm
doing my own thing...but where does that get me, what am I doing it
for. I kind of want to like go backpack - just go buy a flight to
India and just hang out and see the world or...I don't know...go to
Africa and volunteer...*laughs* I think I want to do something that's
different. That's definitely... this whole pollen thing, cool.
Work..normal job, doing all this crap, living in suburbia... ehhhh
it's fine, but I don't think I want that right now. We'll see how it
goes. Give me a week or two and things might change when I get back
and settled and kind of readjusted a bit more. But that's how I feel
right now and it aaaaa, yeah, interesting.
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| Crater Lake Rim sunset, day 42. |
