Fortnight

Today is March 11th, 2009. In thirteen days, I fly to Atlanta, and a stranger will pick me up from the airport, drive me to her house, feed me, let me sleep in her guestroom, and in the morning of March 25th, will drive me to Amicolala Falls, where I will weigh the backpack I have been building for months, don the courage that is failing me tonight, step forward onto a white-blazed trail, and attempt to walk for 2,178 miles all alone. It will be the hardest, rational endeavor of my life. To date.

To idle the days in between, I must gather my belongings, the little necessities I'm learning about, choose my food and do my taxes. I must cancel my gym membership and get a new license. And of course, work, attend a party or two, and hug my dear ones time and time again. These are the activities that will fill my time. But what will fill my head are alternating bursts of anxiety, panic, excitement, and bliss. I wonder how I'll get used to no privacy in the loo and worry that the experienced hikers will judge me visibly. I panic that I will befall a tragedy that my friends present as possible. I live out little possible moments. I catch that sensation of isolation, and realize that part of what makes me miserable and pained here is that I am not there. I think about the months of isolation I have already lived, and the bold creativity, birthed from the luxurious liberty of traveling solo, that mark those times of my life. I allow a little wave of bliss to kindle a long, tired sigh, knowing what I'm in for: six months of vacation, if only I can get my head out of my ass. So I worry, and in a fortnight, worry won't have a place anymore: there will be blinding fear and that weightless disposition of one who has come unstuck.