Why why why… A few reasons why I’m hiking

You’ve got to be a little off your rocker to want to hike over 2,000 consecutive miles. “Normal” people ask all the time, why? Why do you want to hike for six months? What makes you want to walk over 2,000 miles with all that weight on your back? Why why why? To be honest with you, I don’t have a short or even concise answer for those questions…. but I can tell you what walking a thousand miles has taught me so far as to why I’m hiking.

Today we reached the 1,000 mile mark. Have I walked every single mile of that 1,000 miles? No. Have I seen every single white blaze? No. But, I’ve hiked my ass off and I’m damn proud of what I’ve done so far! We’re nearly halfway done or halfway closer to the day I have to find a JOB! Uggggh… work.

So why do I hike? My initial answer is, why wouldn’t you hike? But it’s become more than that now.

  

I hike because I’m tired

I hike because I’m tired of sitting around my house trying to figure out where my life is going. I’m tired of wasting my life away playing the life-sucking game Candy Crush while binge-watching Netflix and Hulu. I’m tired of the routine. I’m tired of looking at the mass amount of material shit I have around my house that really adds nothing to my life. I’m tired of hearing and seeing how unhappy people really are. Now my feet are tired, my shoulders are tired and sometimes my mind is tired. But this is the kind of tired I want to be.

 

 
I hike because I’m bored

I’m bored of the typical “American Dream.” I’m bored of the idea that I need a 9-5 job just to make a respectable amount of money. I’m bored of the idea of living in one place. I’m bored of the idea that my daughter will live a “traditional” life if I don’t do something about it. Sometimes the trail can get boring. Looking at my feet for hours on end because of the ridiculous amount of rocks threatening to roll an ankle or break your poles can be mind-numbing. But when I’m bored in the woods, my mind wanders. It forces me to go to places in my mind that I don’t want to go. I need this kind of boredom to make me think.

 

 

I hike because I’m lazy

I’m soooooo lazy. It may not seem like it, but I am soooo flipping lazy. I wanted to stay in bed all day today. The air conditioning was blowing, the pillows and blankets had me sucked in, the sunrise coming through the window was beautiful. We had the privilege of staying the night at a retreat for combat veterans and their families called Boulder Crest Retreat in Bluemont, VA. It was amazing. But I had miles to do. When you make the decision to hike this kind of distance, your laziness slowly disintegrates. The lazy Michelle will hopefully be a thing of the past in a few months!

I don’t hike because I love nature

Nature is a bitch. A too hot, too cold, too humid, too wet, too dry, tooooooo buggy biaytch. There are very very few days where the weather is just right, the breeze is just enough, the sun isn’t too hot, the bugs aren’t biting. Those are the days you want to last forever. They never do. 

But, I do appreciate nature. And I really appreciate what the uncomfortableness of nature does for me. When it’s too cold, I appreciate the lack of insects trying to eat me. When it’s too hot, I appreciate the rain and the shade from the trees. When it’s too wet, I appreciate the people who open their homes, businesses and even vehicles to us smelly hikers. When it’s too buggy, well, there’s not positive in that! Last night I walked into a wood line of fireflies. For a few moments I had my own little wonderland. In that moment, nature was great.

   

There are loads of reasons why we hike. Everyone has their own and some, like me, didn’t really know what those reasons were in the beginning. I just felt like it was something I should do, something I needed to do. And now, I’m doing it. And now, I have reasons.