[Note: I began writing a post about my experiences on the AT in July, but it became too big for just one entry. This is part one; part two will follow soon.]
It has been several weeks since my first section hike on the Appalachian Trail. Hiking the AT, even just a tiny bit of it, was a fantastic experience. It was a solo hike, about 48 hours long, and I will readily admit that on this journey I learned quite a bit--not only about hiking but also about myself.
I had been wanting to hike part of the AT for a couple of years, but I knew it would take some preparation. I read, I googled, I talked to people with experience hiking the trail, and I otherwise did my due diligence. One phrase that stood out to me in a small way when I was sitting at home in front of my computer became more & more real the deeper into the mountains I walked. That simple phrase was "it's your hike."
This may seem obvious, but the truth is that one of my personal struggles is with comparing myself to other people. I am competitive by nature and I tend to measure my worth with a metaphysical yardstick based on the accomplishments of others. As I walked the trail, I sometimes found myself slipping into this familiar pattern. If someone passed me, I would judge myself for not moving fast enough. If someone's camp was set up, I would think they were better than me for whatever reason: they had better gear, theirs was a better location, they had a more efficient method of hanging their food up in the trees and away from the bears, whatever. Since this was my first AT hike, I would sometimes catch myself thinking "I'm not doing this right."
And that's when I would go back to the simple advice of hikers before me: it's your hike. This was my day. I was alone in a beautiful wilderness with only a few pounds of gear to sustain me. I was drinking cold, clear water from mountain springs. I was living a dream I had had for years. It was time to let go of judgment & just hike.
It was my hike. So that's what they meant!
When I was able to let go of judging myself & judging others, I was able to move forward and face the challenges of the mountains rather than the challenges of being "good enough" to even be there. "It's your hike" became my mantra. It became my pep talk. I would tell myself to just keep moving forward when I needed to make progress, to rest when I was tired, eat when I was hungry, and stop for a few moments to have my breath taken away by the view.
I gave myself permission to let my hike be own. I walked forward for hours at a time. I climbed thousands of feet and stood on the tops of mountains I had been staring up at earlier in the day, marveling at their heights. I gathered water from falls streaming down from far above me and encountered animals in their natural habitats. I pitched my tent so near the sky that I awoke inside the clouds. I breathed fresh mountain air and felt alive.
I had hoped to last four days, but after only two, I found that I had gone about as far as I was able to go. I had made 25 miles in just under 48 hours, but my body was starting to rebel. So of course, the old feelings of guilt and failure began to creep in, and I wondered what the hell I had been thinking when I decided to climb mountains alone for a vacation. I felt that calling it quits now would ruin my hike somehow. And then the same pep talk that had helped me move forward helped me to understand that quitting was ok. It was my hike. It was a hike I could be proud of, and it was a hike that needed to end. I made a call to the friend who was planning to pick me up on Friday & arranged to get off the trail early.
One of my favorite quotes, though I rarely actually live up to it, has always been Teddy Roosevelt's "Comparison is the thief of joy." What I learned on the AT is that though this is certainly true, it's difficult to practice on a daily basis. But when you distill it to its essence, it becomes much more achievable. "Comparison is the thief of joy" really means "it's your life" or "it's your art" or, for me, "it's your hike."
This is not vanity. This is not selfishness. This is not the popular image of Old Blue Eyes defiantly belting out "My Way." It is simply a realization that my life is my life and I don't have to be as good as (or as rich as, or as thin as) anyone else to be happy. I don't need to meet some societally-imposed standard in order to be a worthwhile human being. All I have to do is keep walking forward, rest when I am tired, eat when I am hungry, and stop as often as I like to enjoy the beauty of the world.
It's my hike, after all.
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