If you have any sort of particular distaste for hearing grown men moan & cry, take a pass on this one.
I don’t WANT to bore you with my lamenting, but I’m going nuts here! I need to bitch and moan to people who might actually understand, and I think that could only be thru-hikers. (a group of which I am not yet a member, for the record)
As ADZPCTKO draws closer all I think about most days is how badly I want to be getting ready to start out on the PCT again. I fantasize about strolling out of my office, “ahem”-ing until I have everyone’s attention, announcing “I know less than half of you half as well as I’d like … and the other half I’m not gonna get to know cause I’m outa here suckers!!!” and dashing out leaving all my work half done and one of those man shaped holes in the wall.
Even though I know it’s not an option, my mind plays tricks on me. Tells me that maybe if I think about it for a bit longer I’ll come up with something. Maybe I was mistaken and I don’t ACTUALLY have a mountain of debt higher than Mt Whitney! Maybe I DO have a credit card that hasn’t been cancelled and I could use that to finance the trip! Heck, there’s still six weeks ‘till kick-off! Something could change in that time! Couldn’t it? Couldn’t it???
It can’t. The reality is that I’m in a windowless cave of an office hunched over a computer, whoring myself out to the man, trying to work when my mind couldn’t be more absent, and only if I subject myself to this for another 12 months and do very smart things with my money will there be a chance that next year at this time I’ll be able to break free and do what I want to do so badly, become a thru-hiker. Oh I can’t even begin to describe how badly I want that!
I feel trapped and it’s making me miserable.
I feel the need to qualify “miserable”. I’m not starving or dying of thirst. I can bitch about the government and I won’t disappear one night for it. All my loved ones didn’t just die in a horrible car accident. Really, miserable is a relative thing and relative to REAL misery, I certainly have nothing to cry about.
Be that as it may ……”wwwaaaaah!!!”
I’m not fishing for sympathy, but a bit of empathy wouldn’t suck! I’m sure some of you have been here? Someone else out there right now must be dying to get back on the trail, but can’t?
Anybody want to share their story of can’t-be-free-to-hike woe?
If somebody could respond with something that starts: “Toes, I know EXACTLY what you mean!” … I’d be oh-so-happy!
toes