June 18
I didn’t sleep well, despite being in the most gorgeous campsite that I think I’ve ever camped in. I’m having psychosomatic mosquito affliction. I keep feeling little pin pricks on my skin that I think are mosquitoes but there’s nothing there, and I keep hearing a buzzing that I think are mosquitoes but then there’s nothing there either. Maybe I really am losing it. It’s been days alone out here. Time feels strange.
I got up and started hiking towards Mather pass, the scariest of all the passes. It’s a giant wall of rock that requires scrambling up the side on loose rocks to avoid snow covering the switchbacks. Then on the way down was similar to Glen Pass – walking across the face of the mountain on snow, but it wasn’t flat and there wasn’t a deep channel to walk in – if you fell, you could really fall far, and very badly. There are also rock scrambles dispersed in between the snow.
I went very slowly. Every single step is extremely important. A Canadian named Paul (with the same exact shoes as UK Paul) came up behind me as I was approaching the pass and I asked if I could hike with him over the pass. He didn’t really do anything to help me, but just knowing that someone else was there made me less afraid. I went slow, and got over the pass, and then Paul took off trying to catch up to some other people he had been hiking with a few days prior.
I don’t know if it was the 5-hour Energy shot I took, the magnesium supplements I had started taking in Bishop, regularly taking my allergy medicine, my new shoes, returning to a lower altitude, the adrenaline, not being with anyone disparaging me, or my new confidence or what, but I felt good hiking the rest of the day. My legs felt really strong even down the golden staircase despite now doing four passes in 4 days. Things finally seem to be going great for me. I had been so jealous when Paul and Pink Panther had been talking about how things finally seemed to be clicking for them on the trail, but I was finally having my own moment. It only took 500 more miles for me to feel the same way.
I used paper maps today instead of the FarOut app, trying to save battery on my phone. I didn’t have a lot left in the battery bank and needed to ration for a full 8 days. I like it. Old school. Navigation is one of my favorite aspects of sailing. I love maps, I love charts. I love figuring out my route, planning, looking at the topography. I kept checking the map to see what kind of topographical features I’d be walking through, and found myself watching my view of the mountains move as I walked, more fascinated by the shape of the mountains and rivers instead of how many miles I was walking, or needing to walk. This feels more natural.
I ended up camping near a good swimming spot and washed myself in the river. Unfortunately, I didn’t go swimming as I’m trying to keep my foot tape dry. I only have so much of it and while it lasts a few days, the constant river crossings and wet feet makes the tape looser faster, so keeping it dry helps a lot. Most of the time on river crossings, I try to find a way to keep my feet dry by going a bit up or downstream and finding rocks to cross on, but if that’s not possible, or it’s too dangerous, I’ll walk across the river in my crocs and then sit on the other side of the river letting my tape dry before putting my shoes and socks back on. I find that doing this rather than walking with wet shoes and socks keeps the tape more sturdy for longer. I hate that I can’t swim though.
After I ate dinner at 4pm, I bathed in the river and I decided that I finally felt like I belonged on the PCT, I belonged in the Sierra. I danced around waving my arms at the mountains thanking them. Maybe I’m a mountain woman after all. I still hear the buzzing in my ears, the river voices. Maybe I’m just going insane. Maybe I have HACE (high altitude cerebral edema)? Surely I’d have some other symptoms though. I don’t have any of the “umbles” – mumbles, stumbles, fumbles. Insanity it is then.
Paul sent a message from someone else’s Garmin telling me he had arrived at Muir Trail Ranch asking where I was and if I was okay I just responded. “I’m fine. Mile 824”. He then asked if I still wanted him to wait for me there. What the hell? He said he would wait there. Why is that up for renegotiation? He obviously doesn’t want to wait for me.
I responded, “you said you would wait for me there”. That’s not a yes or no. Just a reminder of your commitment. I’m not making a decision for you – have the balls to tell me you’re not going to wait for me again. Can you love and hate someone at the same time? I wish you could cancel both out and just feel nothing.
Shoe Leather and Gooey both show up around 6pm and camp at the same campsite. Glad to have familiar company, but I also don’t think I need it. I’ve been thinking about how calm I feel alone, why I usually stay single – nobody triggering me. The absence of triggers isn’t a cure for your issues though. But is it so bad to give your nervous system a rest? I feel better than yesterday. It literally feels like I’ve lost 5 lbs. Something washed away in my river baptism. Maybe my shame, shame I never should have carried, shame that was never mine to own. Maybe sins, maybe my old self.
I keep thinking about Paul. Is he a bad person or is he just a human just like me? Is his behavior because he’s some kind of evil narcissist? Or was it truly a miscommunication?
When I was 19, I was groomed into a relationship with someone much older who was extremely controlling, and emotionally abusive. He used to make “jokes” that were mean. He used to put me down. He used to follow me and accuse me of cheating on him. He used to turn everything around on me. Everything that he accused me of was actually something he was doing, and when we would had a fight where I brought up an issue he always found a way to throw it back at me or to blame me for it.
Am I projecting all of these things onto Paul and seeing what I want to see? Seeing what I am used to seeing? How many times have I destroyed relationships because I am constantly guarding myself, scanning for danger, and trying to avoid ever getting hurt again? Or am I just observing the same exact pattern?
I have a much better relationship with my parents now that I’m an adult (and I live 3,000+ miles away from them), but when I was a child, I experienced serious emotional neglect, I was left to deal with some traumatic things (a story for some other time) on my own completely alone and I didn’t have anybody. I don’t think my parents are bad people, but they were of a generation that was completely unequipped to emotionally attune to their children in a way that their children needed.
I started going to therapy a few years ago, and one of the things that we talked about a lot was this concept of abandonment – even when parents aren’t physically absent; when they’re unable to provide emotional needs or physical needs to their children, they have essentially abandoned their children even if they are still physically there. Children who experience this can also abandon themselves. They learn to survive this environment by making themselves small, taking up such little space in the world. They attempt to be perfect. Attempt to be obedient, attempt to never be a burden because they think if they do these things, they’ll earn love from their parents, that they’ll be enough, that they’ll finally have their needs met.
These types of children grow up to be adults who are people pleasers, who who often have eating disorders or other organizational compulsions as a way to control their environment. They may have been gifted athletes, and achieved a lot academically, and in their careers, but yet still feel that they’re not enough. These children often end up with chronic illnesses and autoimmune disease – the early childhood stress expressing genes they may have been predisposed to. These children grow into adults who end up in relationships where they’re often taken for granted by their partners, where they attempt to take up little space because they think that will earn them love in those relationships. These children often fall prey to narcissists and love bombing, and don’t always assert their needs well, not because they are weak people, but because as children they learned that asserting yourself didn’t actually get you anything, and if anything, it maybe made things worse.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve learned about in therapy.
I went to sleep, still hearing the buzzing noise. Maybe I’m just crazy. Maybe the trail can’t heal any of this.
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