Clear the Debts, Break the Chains

Last month I turned 30.
Nicole bought me a book that chronicled a middle-aged man's thru hike of the Appalachian Trail, after his wife had died of cancer.

The book is an OK read. Not an amazing read, but good enough to reignite my need to get on the trail and get lost for 3 or 4 months.

While I love reading of others' adventures, the stories are terrible for my mental health. I am again faced with the frustration of the material, bill-paying, working, "real world" holding me back.

I have seen what is it like to do nothing but hike everyday.
I have eaten poptart peanut butter sandwiches, and had coffee that was more grounds than liquid.
I have gone 12 days without bathing.
I have hit the sack at 7pm with the sunset, and woken at 5 with the sunrise.
And I miss it. So much that at times I can't bear the idea of assimilation into the "real world".

What is it about the trail that people obsess about?
Maybe it's the scenery or the people one meets. Perhaps its the daily use of gear, or the idea of doing something others deem as hardcore.
For me, being in the woods, with only one purpose is the true and simplest definition of being alive.
It's eating, drinking, moving, sleeping.
Everything else that we do- all of the problems we have- are because of the choices we made for ourselves. Most of them come down to money. You must work to buy the things in your life. But what do you REALLY NEED for things?

"Man is the only kind of varmint that sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it," John Steinbeck said.

Fuck "things". I still have no car. Still ride my bike that I bought for $75 everywhere. There was a time I owned a vehicle. During that time, I was constantly treading water, trying to get ahead... only to be held down by tires, brakes, insurance, repairs, and by going places, and doing things I didn't need to be doing. The road to financial and life freedom was blocked by an insurmountable wall of my own creation.

Now, that wall is a small concrete barrier, and I am the tractor trailer truck in the distance, revving up to shatter that shit.
I am perhaps a little over a year away from being debt free. To have debt is to be a slave to the world, and being a slave is a burden that has grown tiresome for me, just 12 years into adulthood.

It's time to clear the debts, and break the chains. The trail looms.

kp