Looking Back...Final Thoughts.

I have really enjoyed my different experiences on the AT, or the Appalachian Trail, which is an east coast mountain range that runs the length of Georgia to Maine. My first adventures started in a previous blog, which you can read here. I try to be a stickler on my mileage as I’m hiking, but enjoyed the daily-occurring spurts of spontanety. That could be stopping to chat with someone in a shelter, listening to the wildlife around me (NOT rattlesnakes!), listening to other's conversations, hearing the background of why people are on the trail, and even smelling nature.

Once again, this experience reiterated that everyone has their own story and that I am rich compared to some people. I have the resources on a daily basis to obtain basics that I need as well as the options to go out to eat or, like I'm currently doing, even move cities whenever I need to. Seriously, I am going to work on how to see into people's lives in the area in which I live. More on that later....

One of the things that I am learning is that I can push myself, but it's also okay to not quite make it to my goal and to just start again the next day. The first time I did this on the trail, Dad and I were aiming for twenty-one miles. We had experienced lots of sharp rocks during the the previous days and the bottoms of my feet were so sore. We ended up just hiking seventeen miles that day which, even though that is a great accomplishment, I felt like that was a failure because I didn't reach my daily goal marker. On something like this AT hiking particularly, there is a long-term goal I'm trying to reach and having a goal every day helps keep me consistent. BUT: It is also OKAY to stop, take a break, and even take a zero day when needed. That helps me enjoy the experience more and it will help me not to be in so much pain. Part of self-care is to make sure my body keeps up with my brain because my mind always has these grandiose ideas. It sometimes takes a second for my body to catch up. I'm not sure if this is something that I'm going to have to retrain my brain on or give myself grace.

As a whole, hiking has allowed me the time to enjoy the little things, hopefully to teach me to slow down and enjoy things in life, even if I am not necessarily "getting things done." This seems to be my default, but I have discovered that if I stop to ask questions, it is best to listen to the answers. When I do this I can develop relationships and learn new things from other people's stories, retaining the information as they speak. I am going to attempt to be more intentional to enjoy the little moments and to take other people's stories to heart. Hopefully this shows up in my writing and art as I creatively transfer stories to visual mediums to share with others.

I cut my hiking trip short by a little more than a week because I accepted a new job! I will be moving about six hours away to teach, while still staying here in Texas. It will be another new experience, but I hope to take from it the patience that I learned from the regularity of hiking every day and also take moments to stop and enjoy what I am learning. Things get easier only when I take time to practice something new. The same goes with learning new techniques in a job. I will have several insights that I can draw from in previous teaching experiences, but I will have challenges: every year brings a new group of kids and every kid learns in their own way. As I've found out on this trip, everyone has their own background story and elementary students are no exception. I hope that my passion and enjoyment of the subjects that I teach will transfer to my students throughout the year.

TIMELINE:

(NOT) THE END.