At Fontana Dam, the starting point of our adventure...
I had a really awesome time this week. Kyrk and I haven't had much of a getaway since our honeymoon (except the occasional weekend run to anywhere more interesting than where we live), so it was really nice to have a little vacation. We went down to the Great Smoky Mountains area for a little bit of hiking and camping. Well, let's just say I underestimated our endeavor until I was about 2 miles in too deep for any form of escape that wouldn't involve tumbling down a mountain and meeting some form of dying. Not really; I knew it would be a challenge, and I think I was pretty prepared for it. What I was not prepared for was being oppressed by droves of atrocious flying and biting demon gnats that would have made Genghis Khan cry like a baby. What I expected but was not necessarily prepared for were the many instances where I was wrestling my mind as I walked.
Our backpacking adventure involved hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Kyrk took a week from work so he could complete the entire Smoky Mountain section to the AT, which is 71 miles. I wasn't able to get the whole week, as I just started a new job about three months ago and didn't have much time yet, but I got enough to be able to dedicate the weekend, Monday, and Tuesday toward hiking the first 41 miles (from Fontana Dam to Newfound Gap), with Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to rest and enjoy the beautiful reality that hotels have *showers*! Thank goodness for that, I was 50 shades of STANKY! Anyway, the mileage wasn't sounding too bad to me, because I have backpacked before. The thing I was a little nervous about is that I had never backpacked more than two days straight. I was incredibly excited to be going further than just one night of camping in between, but I knew it would not be easy. Well, ladies and gents, it wasn't easy. It wasn't horrible by any means, but there were a lot of times when I was struggling, stumbling on rocks, feeling guilty for slowing Kyrk down (he never indicated this, but I knew when I was shuffling my feet at times), wanting more water, wanting less uphills, wanting less steep downhills, and fighting the urge to eat every trace of my food so I wouldn't have to carry it on my back! I revisited a habit that is seemingly benign but can really serve to unravel one's happiness and can create a miserable experience for others; the complaining rumbled out full force. I didn't whine and cry the entire way but the desire to gripe my sorrows away (yeah, poor me, right?) built quite a bit on those steep climbs. It was like those obnoxious urges to cough that hit you at their hardest when you are in a quiet room that needs to stay quiet for whatever reason. You swallow 100 times a minute, you clear your throat, you eat cough drops like candy, and guzzle water, but they DON'T GO AWAY. It seems the more you try to hold them in or try to pinch a tiny cough out for relief, the louder and stronger the coughing fit ends up being. That's about how the desire to complain felt. I would try to distract myself, eat, take Ibuprofen for my aching feet (okay, that actually helped tremendously) but the discomfort stayed on my mind as I walked. Guys, I wasn't wincing in pain with every step. I wasn't dying on the whole thing. I am actually pretty tolerant to pushing myself physically. It's just that it can get to a point where it is difficult to ignore. It is when it starts to get really, really uncomfortable.
I don't know many people who love being uncomfortable, but I can tell you that I am absolutely not one of them. I don't always do well with it. I can be pretty resilient with some things, but awkward, nagging discomfort is something that is hard for me to quiet down in my mind. If I'm a little uncomfortable, whether it involves being too hot, getting a leg cramp in the car, or having a wedgie while hostessing a friend's bridal tea, it becomes a quick obsession. Forget compartmentalizing thoughts; the littlest tickle of dryness in my throats precedes a desperate quest to find myself the nearest drinking fountain. I may be weird, or this may be normal. Who knows? I think it's pretty normal but I still hate when I let discomfort consume me. It seems to be the ultimate first world problem, to where we are so used to having every demand met that we are aside from ourselves if one of our needs or stupid wants has to be put off for a bit. What's my point with this? I let myself be obsessed with my discomfort on the trail. I didn't have a meltdown when it got hot outside or when bugs bit really, but when my feet began hurting on the trail or whenever I would stumble on way too many rocks in a row, I found myself getting obsessed with annoyance. It threatened to steal the joy in my experience. It threatened to turn me into a whiney brat in hopes of somehow relieving the torment of my not-broken-in-enough Merrell's. Most concerning of all, it threatened to make me want to quit moving and to not savor every moment of the beautiful hike. I am not proud to say that I let it steal away some of the experience. I let it bring me to whining and I let it distract me and almost let it defeat me. Here is where I will give myself some credit, as well as Kyrk who was incredibly encouraging along the way; I did not give up but instead did what I could to adapt to the discomfort. I got comfortable with the uncomfortable. And with that being said, the uncomfortable was worth every single second of everyone I got to meet and everything I got to see.
Taken from Clingman's Dome - the AT's highest point
We crunched through fallen leaves. We breathed in the freshest of air. We climbed the summits of several mountains (including the famous Rocky Top, Thunderhead Mountain, and Clingman's Dome!). We drank amazing water from mountainside springs. We saw hawks with sunlight permeating their wings and tiny chipmunks' acrobatics. We walked through fields completely consumed with white flowers that smiled at us during the day and closed back into tiny bulbs at night.
Dat ain't no snow!
Our climb to Thunderhead Mountain!
Standing on the very top of Rocky Top!
We met all sorts of wonderful people from all walks of life and all ages and spent several fun nights camping with them, savoring the warmth of a fire as we watched the sky slowly fade to black. We ate wild ramps off of the mountain tops and were kissed by breezes as we gazed around and saw mountains upon mountains with a backdrop of famous Smoky blue haze. We somehow rolled out of our sleeping bags at 5 a.m. and climbed to the highest point on the AT as we watched the sky transform with shades of pink, purple, and orange. We watched terrain change about five times a day, some parts looking as if they came right from a Brothers Grimm fairytale. We felt ourselves get stronger as our packs got lighter. We slept deeply, blanketed by the satisfaction of having earned it with a hard day's work. We learned a new appreciation for instant potatoes and dried banana chips. We felt the warmth of the powerful sun on our faces. We were able to look behind ourselves after a grueling climb and see exactly what we had conquered, as far as even being able to see from what looked like hundreds of miles away (obviously not, as we didn't hike anywhere near hundreds!) the tiny blip of a lake that marked our starting point. We grew closer through the trip and felt even deeper love for each other than we already shared before. We felt the power, the beauty, and the love of God in every single moment, having walked right through a glimmer of Heaven that He has left for us to enjoy while we are on our temporary home.
I gained a toughness in my mind that I needed to gain, and my thirst for experiencing the world grew at a rate beyond words.
I would have never seen those things, and met those people, and felt so truly alive, if I had let myself capsize under the weight of discomfort. It has made me aware of what else is out there that I shy away from in fear of leaving my comfort zone. It has also made me aware that I may be missing many blessings and lessons when I let myself have a pity party about my life. Quite frankly, I am facing some discomfort in my life. We all are. The grand tragedies and pitfalls in our lives are obviously highly impacting to our well-beings, for better or worse, but the way we choose to respond to what unsettles us can truly make or break us in how we see and experience life. Don't let the uncomfortable stop you if you can help it. Instead, let yourself get comfortable with the uncomfortable, for it keeps us moving, and it keeps us really experiencing life.
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