I get asked a lot if I get lonely hiking by myself. The answer is “of course I do.” But the truth is I have felt lonely for most of my life. I was lonely growing up in an abusive family. I was lonely all through school where I was often teased. And I was lonely for most of my early adult life. It was only when I recognized the barriers I put up which kept me from connection that I began to feel a little less lonely. I learned to be real with people and was rewarded with some very meaningful friendships.

But still I struggled. Because of my dissociation I have internal parts that are stuck in the aloneness of the past. As happens with post traumatic stress, these parts are disconnected from the core of me and so are hard for me to access on a conscious level.They exist in a world of pain and all they want is to feel seen and loved. They want to feel special. These parts have trouble taking in the love of my friends.

I thought I had learned to love myself enough to heal these wounded parts, but when my husband left without a word to me, refusing to have even one conversation with me and instead allowing his lawyer to make continual threats about what he was going to do if I did not go along with his wishes, I fell into a place of post traumatic dissociation. I was thrown back into my childhood pain, feeling alone and unloveable. I once again began to feel I was somehow evil and the cause of everything difficult in my life. The only solution I could see was to kill myself. Trying to avert this was why I started hiking the CDT three summers ago. And it is why I am still at it now.

I have learned that when I am tired or hungry or in physical pain I am more prone to falling into the throes of loneliness. And so it was understandable that the sense of aloneness was threatening to choke me when I set out from Cristal’s on the sixth morning of hiking the NET. My body was weary and hiker hunger, that insatiable hunger that is hard to satisfy on a long hike, had set in. My knees were hurting as were the bottoms of my feet. Even though part of me looked forward to camping in the woods again, leaving the company I had had with Crystal these last few days was intensifying my sense of aloneness.

Rain was threatening and I had no idea where I would be spending the night but I was committed to doing this hike. I trusted my instincts telling me I needed to be out here for my emotional well-being. I was determined to live by the words I write and so trust that everything, including where I would sleep that night, would work out. I reminded myself that as much as I sometimes feel lonely out here, there are benefits to hiking solo. I can go at my own pace, stop when I want to and have plenty of time for internal musings. I thought of all the goodness that had come into my life over these last 2 1/2 years of adventuring. I shouldered my full pack and headed out onto the trail trusting the day would bring me what I needed, even if part of that meant really feeling and going into my intense aloneness.

Not too long after starting out I came upon a cache or water, fruit and electrolyte mixes left for me by Chris C. She had seen a post online from Christal asking if people would leave water for me along the way. Chris had gone out of her way to leave me water and snacks at a number of places along the trail. Two days earlier she even met me on the road with some peaches from a nearby orchard. I gratefully ate the banana and filled my water bottle, sending a silent prayer of gratitude into the world. I reminded myself that everyone has rough things in life and I once again vowed to focus on what I had, rather than on what I was lacking.

I passed through some really weedy sections where the trail was hard to see. I thought even though I could not always feel the love in my life, it was there under the dissociated weeds. I picked my way through some dense poison ivy and made my way up to the Heublein Tower on Talcott Mountain. At 934 feet above sea level this mountain was one of the highest elevations I would attain on the NET in Connecticut. I enjoyed feeling my body work to climb the mountain while once again carrying a full pack. I was looking forward to eating lunch at the summit.

Just as I emerged from the woods onto the semi-open area near the Heublein Tower, I heard a large crack of thunder and the clouds let loose with pounding rain. There was a small lunch pavilion on the summit that I quickly ducked into. The temperature cooled cool down almost immediately and I found myself getting a little chilly. Grateful for the roof over my head, I dug out my wind/rain gear and light weight sweater. I put them on before settling down at a picnic table to eat my long awaited lunch.

The rain was coming down in sheets. The lightning created a spectacular light show while thunder boomed around me and seemed to shake the pavilion. I wasn’t thrilled with the thought of hiking in that kind of rain, especially as I knew the rocky descent would now be quite slippery. Even though the roof was a bit leaky and the rain blowing in sideways made much of the large pavilion damp, I contemplated spending the night there. To pass some time I turned my phone on to see if there were any messages. A text came in from Chris asking me where I was and what I was going to do for the night. I texted her back and told her what I was thinking. She said there was a small break in the rain coming and if I hiked to the next road crossing she would pick me up and bring me to her home for the night.

True to her prediction, the break in the rain came and I carefully picked my way down the two miles to the road where Chris was waiting for me. She drove me back to her home in Bristol in a rain that was flooding roads and making it almost impossible to see other cars. Chris fed me a delicious dinner and before long I was falling asleep. As I drifted off I recognized that once again, by going along with what was given to me, even when it meant leaning into the pain of aloneness, enough of my needs had been met to keep me moving forward. I would never had envisioned that morning where I would have ended up that night.