I’d been depressed for almost a year when I arrived at Jenny’s Cabin. Normally I tuck that away, but it has a tendency to resurface in quiet moments. In the empty Airbnb at the start of this hike, and now in the quiet solitude of an off grid cabin where I stopped running from my demons and took a zero.
The town, like too many in New England, didn’t have a grocery store, but they had a liquor store. I know that because this is where I started confronting drinking as a lifestyle choice during my AT thru hike in 2011. And walking down memory lane had me walking into the liquor store for a pint of vodka, not enough to get drunk, just enough to get intoxicated. Then back to the cabin in an attempt to purge myself of these lingering feelings that refused to come to the surface. Alcohol has a way of loosening the emotional strings in a way that I might better perceive the music being played by my heart.
I drank. I almost cried. And that was it.
I’d barely touched a level of intoxication that would allow me to escape myself, but felt better the next day. Nothing had been solved. But my mind had been cleared of the chemical debris that had been undermining both my performance and perspective.
I hiked out to Great Falls on the Housatonic River and outsourced the still buried and remaining tears to the powerful surge of water flowing over the rocks. I watched the Earth cry for me because I was unable to do it for myself.
And then I walked north. Alone.
#appalachiantrail #wandering #hikertrashforlife