Loneliness and the Appalachian Trial

A few nights ago, I went to bed early.  I woke up a bit later and needed to go to the bathroom.

The sun was still up!  This fact suggests I don't have a social life in the style Facebook recommends.

The last time I awoke in the middle of the night to sunlight I was hiking the Appalachian Trail during the summer of 1978, with Deb Kupetz. 

Hiking the AT felt worthwhile and commendable. It was a precious adventure. 

The work of living with depression and loneliness may, or may not be, another precious adventure.  Let's say, for the sake of examination, that this grey morass is also worthy and commendable.  If so, I need all the sleep I can get to complete the next segment of the trail tomorrow…and tomorrow. 

Plus I'll require rest…and the space for empty reflection offered by 20+ miles a day alone with my thoughts.  

I used to hum John Denver's "Country Road" over and over some afternoons, after Deb had fallen back a few hundred yards.  She would succumb to her own peaceful state during those long mid-afternoons, until we found a suitable spot for the tent at the end of the day. 

Unlike today, on the AT I had Deb's quiet and strong companionship, and while we were alone a fair amount, there wasn't a single one of the 109 days we didn't pass other groups of long-distance hikers.  

We enjoyed the "tom tom" communication between the other through hikers, initially the northbound people we passed, and as we got into Virginia and beyond, also those who had begun their southerly trip in Maine.  One example: A runner passed us in North Carolina, intent on setting a trail speed record that summer…and we knew he had succeeded (68 days back then) within two hours, even though we were still navigating a complicated part of the trail in Connecticut and he was presumably celebrating on the way down from Katahdin. 

I can't place a value on being alone every day.  I assume I'll share this difficult and sad period with someone else, eventually, just as I sometimes recall AT stories.  

Most people are initially impressed that I hiked the entire AT in one go. They get bored within 60 seconds.  Generally.  Unless I transform and become Joan Didion, I doubt many people will listen longer while I narrate my years lost in depression and loneliness. They will start yawning before I get to Fontana Dam, which is the first mail stop after you leave Springer Mountain in Georgia 

They won't make it to how PTS filtered in to complicate my mental health collapse.  They'll be watching sports on TV by the time I get to the best healing modalities (I've tried them all), and which had a lasting impact, or how they differed. 

Unless you've been here.  Unless you've had a life partner "die."  Unless you know grieving intimately.  I'm thinking of my friend Sherrye as I write this. Sherrye listens, and knows.

Those (like Sherrye) are the "through hikers" of the mental health impairment world.  Those are the people who will volunteer to carry your red external-frame Kelty backpack a few feet when you can't get up yourself.

There are very few of us.  I'm not sure I've met a single other human who did the entire AT.  Bill Bryson's book A Walk in the Woods is fantastic, but he only did a third of the whole thing…with his poor lost friend Matt Angerer (called Stephen Katz in the book).

But…Bill's friend Matt/Stephen would be a wonderful ally in a discussion about loneliness and depression.

Matt/Stephen ("I threw out the heavy shit!") would share and listen for hours, I bet. 

I wish he was my friend now…we could listen, and talk, and empathize deeply.   

By the way, the song I hum to myself now is "Everybody Hurts Sometime," by REM.  Now, as then, I have to drop down half an octave to overcome the tenor voicing in the original versions.  This makes both songs sound like dirges rather than nostalgic pop hits.  

Perfect for a walk facing north as the sun sets behind my left shoulder…toward the inevitable Mt Katahdin. Or just to my bathroom, similarly due north of my bed.