Nostalgia
I’m getting separation anxiety. As my departure date draws closer the excitement is starting to feel more like fear and dread. I think it is all within the range of totally normal trepidation about gear, weather, pack weight, food, mosquitos. I’ve been living and breathing PCT prep for months, and now I’m running out of things to do. I’ve packed everything up to see how it fits and then unpacked it for proper storage, weighing things and cutting off tags, fretting over ounces. I am starting to rethink decisions I made weeks ago and misplace things I’ve packed. I am heading off into the unknown, and no matter how much I prepare there will be unexpected things to encounter and difficult moments to endure. I expected this.
What I did not expect, but should have, is the anticipatory homesickness. I am noticing all the ‘last time’ things I am doing with a sweet appreciation and also a solid dose of heartache. I feel nostalgic for this place that I have not yet left. The word nostalgia comes from two Greek root words, nostos: to return home and algos: pain. The pain of longing to return home. I am still technically home so I am appreciating everything with the knowing that I will soon be leaving and will be away for months. Everything is more vivid and beautiful and delicious, and I feel sentimental and grateful for my life here. Its almost like a siren’s call to stay put and enjoy what’s shaping up to be a beautiful Montana summer.
The other layer is that I am also going home. Oregon and Washington are where I came from before coming to Montana. I will start up in the North Cascades and walk south through the mountains I used to hike in medical school and residency, past Glacier Peak and Mount Adams both of which I climbed several times in the 1990’s. Then I will walk deeper into my past as I press into Oregon and Mount Hood, Timberline Lodge, Mount Jefferson and the Three Sisters Wilderness. I feel the ache of longing to return to these places, and yet I fear there will be no ‘home’ when I get there. I will simply be passing through, appreciating the scenery, present moments tinted with memories of my youth in the Cascades. Nostalgia may travel the whole way with me.
It is perhaps odd that I have taken on such a quest. All my life I have longed for home, connection, family and intimate friendships, and yet here I am flinging myself into a journey away from a home that I love and doing so quite alone. I suppose my call to adventure was my own lethargy, burnout and grief over the loss of my mother. It had become a real do or die situation for me. Do something, because not doing something is dangerous. A refusal of the call would only have led deeper into depression, burnout and lethargy. In this way, the PCT has already breathed new life into me. It has created energy and purpose, kindled excitement and imagination as well as fear and trepidation. There is no backing out now, but the departure does not feel as triumphant as I had imagined. It feels frightening and lonely.
In the classic hero’s journey there are many steps, one of which is meeting the mentor. I do not think I have had a mentor, at least not a singlular one. I have met my mentors in many different people and in many different moments. It feels as if the various mentors are actually different voices within me, multiple aspects of my own self, but being reflected back to me through these other individuals. One example that stands out came very early on when I first voiced my tentative dream out loud to my therapist. I said “I think I want to hike the Pacific Crest Trail” and she simply said “I just got chills”.
Sometimes people who don’t know me very well or don’t know much about backpacking will say the kindest most supportive things. They have confidence in me, and I think “Why? How can you be so confident in me doing this thing I have no idea if I can do and barely know anything about?” Even so, the words are a balm, and I feel strengthened and fortified. But perhaps the most compelling mentor was the one who, when I told him that I aimed to hike about 15 miles per day said to me “Susan, YOU CAN’T DO THAT.”
And I thought to myself, “Oh yes I can. Just watch me”