The Gremlin Days

I’ve been on the trail for two weeks exactly and i have become aware of a phenomenon I like to call “The Gremlin Days.”

On these days, my gremlins come out. They crawl up my spine from the deep caverns  of my body where I  have tightly kept them shut for a long time. I’ve worked hard to lock them down there, but they’ve found they’re way out.

They crawl up my spine and get up to my head and whisper in my ears all day. They remind me that quitting is an option. They remind me of the bad things I’ve done to people in my life. They remind me of memories I don’t want to think of. They tell me that I can’t finish my hike- that I won’t finish my hike. They remind me that I have emotions, so many emotions and they make me cry and jab my poles into the ground angrily every time I take a step forward. They remind me what it is like to be a child with no control over my emotions.

In every day life, the gremlins come up too, but I push them down by scrolling through my phone, binge watching TV, going to yoga or my favorite coffee shop. I’ve gotten so good at pushing those gremlins down in my off-trail life.

On the trail, there are no distractions. There is nothing to take my attention away from the gremlins and so, I walk with the gremlins. I eat lunch with the gremlins. I sit with them and look at them for hours and hours. I look at them and say “I see you and I feel you.” 

At the end of the day, the gremlins don’t look or sound so ugly. At the end of the day, the gremlins become a little nicer. They thank me for allowing them out of they’re caves for a little bit and our relationship gets a little bit better. We are working on being okay with one another.
To my gremlins, I see you. I know you’re here for the next 2090 miles and I hope by the end we can say we are friends.