Flashbacks and spring

Spring is glimmering for the first time this year. The sun has been high and bright all day, and the snow is melting, releasing little puddles of dog shit all over the lawns and sidewalks. It feels like the end of a long winter, not just literally, but metaphorically. Like I am the one defrosting, coming back to life, seeing the hope in the light at the end of the tunnel. Another snow storm is brewing for tonight, the weather channel says. I hope that I can bike back from work before it begins.

The closer this trip gets, the bigger the emotional swings. 

I hiked the Appalachian Trail a long eight years ago, when I was 21 and felt like a different person. I keep having these vivid flashbacks to the start and finish. To December of 2005 (2005!) when I was in Cusco, Peru. Wandering the cobbled streets, so tired of being a tourist and alone. Homesick in a way that I didn't think was possible. Hatching a brand new plan - buying a plane ticket home for New Years. Forgoing the Inca Trail and Manchu Pichu because it just wasn't fun anymore. 

Back in Western New York, falling asleep reading about hiking trails on my parent's couch swaddled in my sleeping bag at 2 in the morning. Running on the treadmill at the gym, red-faced and determined. Testing my windproof mittens by rolling down the window of the car and sticking my hands out at 70 mph. Missing an exit on the thruway days before departure, and having to pull over and sob, for no reason.

And then suddenly, in my memories, I am in Georgia, hiking through the cold fog. Donned in fleece pants and carrying too much Ramen. Giggling at hikers' jokes at the shelters, hurting so badly I thought my hike was done before I'd even left the state.

Me on the AT in Vermont

In August, I returned to college, to the friends I'd left almost two years before. To a carpeted basement home and a bed, and classes, and stillness. I did laps around the arboretum, feeling like a hamster on a wheel. I walked the 6 miles back and forth to the grocery store, my backpack loaded with all of the things I had been craving for months. I fattened up, saw the college counselor. "Maybe it's not you, maybe it's this place," she said. I clung to those words. The winter passed, long, harsh and frozen, like all Minnesota winters. Spring came, and I thawed with it. 

CA coast

That year, full of anxiety, and growth, and joy, and depression was eight years ago, and still it feels more vivid than any other since. I wonder what this year will bring.