Feelings Aren’t Linear
Today I did an 8.2 mile hike in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park, the Middle Prong trail to Indian Flats Falls. This hike was recommended by the ranger that checked me into my campsite yesterday. I had planned to hike Rainbow falls but this was closer to the campground and I was more likely to find parking for the van.
Reviews on All Trails were mixed, with a lot of people saying it was nothing special and that gave me pause, but I decided to forge ahead. I’ve had some trouble with All Trails reviewers giving bad reviews to hikes that are actually spectacular. I’m starting to think the ‘nothing special’ reviews are just trail gatekeeping from jackwagons who want the waterfalls to themselves. Don’t listen to them.
The trail mostly follows an old trainline, which makes the grade very moderate and the ground cover not that difficult. I was nervous about the length of this hike, it’s the longest I've done on this journey. But the ranger reassured me the hike was pretty easy and she was right.
The relative ease of the hike put me into a meditative flow and gave me some time to think over some stuff that I’ve been struggling with lately. I’m not sure exactly when it started but at some point I started worrying about stuff like a job and making money and stopped being as grateful for this experience as I should be. In the van, you can start to feel like you are on vacation, that this isn’t real life. And with vacation comes eating out, buying souvenirs. The old me would have bought whatever caught my eye for a second. But the new me has to budget and that started to cause me some anxiety.
You can think you are fully over a traumatic life event, but the truth is feelings aren’t linear. Feelings can resurface. That’s a good thing. We need time to fully work through stuff. At some point I will have to get some kind of job again, if I didn’t have the fear of not having any money, maybe I wouldn’t feel that way. But that doesn’t have to be today and sometimes we all need a reminder of it.
I’ve also been struggling a bit with loneliness which is strange because I’ve seen more friends and family on this leg of the trip than I normally see in real life. But I also don’t have anyone I’m sharing “daily life” with. I exited the lockdown phase of COVID with the need to not be alone like that again. That hasn’t been in the cards for me, and honestly the start of this trip was the first time I was truly happy about it. If I were in a long term committed relationship, this trip would be hard to take, to leave my person behind.
So today, after hiking a little over 4 miles, with the last .10 of a mile being a little spicy, to a waterfall, I sat down and I took time to reset my intentions. This time is a gift. Can it be lonely - absolutely. Are you glad you don’t have to compromise on what you do everyday - 100% yes. Do you wish you had what felt like unlimited income to replenish what you spend - yes. But can you find blessings in other ways, are other things more important - 100% yes.