Mount Laguna (mile 41) to mile 64
The miles out of Mount Laguna feel hard. Or rather, obligatory. Uninspiring. Nothing is really wrong, but on day four tiredness has begun to creep into my legs and this early in the morning the endorphins from hiking haven’t had the chance to elevate my mood beyond it’s normal morning calm. It’s certainly not reason for alarm, just the reality of big goals.
How can I best say this. I once read that every overnight success is actually five years in the making. I may be bastardizing that quote, but I’m writing this from the side of a mountain hiding from the afternoon heat in the shade of a rock, so I’ll kindly ask you to cut me a break. I love the sentiment behind that idea. In that, it’s so easy to look at someone else’s achievement and fill in the fantasy of how they got there with a nicely paved road to the top. But that’s never the reality of the process, is it?
Like any big goal in life, there are sure to be moments of elation and joy, breakthroughs and beauty. Just as there will be crushing lows and challenges; days that end in tears and stories you’ll only tell after the passage of years have dulled the sharp edges that cut so deep. These are the memories that we celebrate or commiserate over, but I’ve found, and continue to find, that the highs and lows are greatly outnumbered by the mundane doing of a task.
This is exactly what I’m walking through today. The steps one must take day upon day in order to move oneself incrementally closer to the finish line. It just so happens to be that my steps towards the finish line are quite literal. So today, as I’m sure many days in the future, I work to be content with the simple act of walking. To be grateful to live in a body that can do these things I ask of it, in a part of the world where thru hiking is even possible. I work to be happy with knowing that I’m grinding down this hike little by little, and I try not to think too far in the future lest I totally overwhelm myself.
