Going from hiking, to a week long road trip home with my mom, to job searches: it's been a crazy ride to say the least. I'm not sure where to go from here. I had attempted to line up an Americorps opportunity but I'm not sure that my references will follow through. One of them will definitely be willing and able but the other, I'm not sure because that person was put down because he happened to be the only other person that would work. I had his information, he was my boss at a business that had an address, and the other option would have been the person who hired me as a counselor last summer; she never witnessed me working as she was in her office, so I didn't think it would be of much help. I'm not sure if that door is still open even if I pressure them. It's disappointing to say the least, but maybe next time.
Right now, I'm looking into working in MCPS in some capacity either as a volunteer for before and after school programs or, hopefully this will be the end result, as a para-educator. Just because I didn't get an Education degree doesn't mean I won't pursue this goal anyway. I have a new fire that was billowed into me by the trail; I won't give up just because things get hard and as long as I'm moving forward, I'm doing alright; even if I'm only crawling. On the trail, I heard someone say something like that. She had said that she would tell herself that she could cry, she could whine as long as she kept walking and that resonated with me because I was thinking something like that myself.
My thought had been that all of the reasons I might have had to leave the trail were really the reasons to stay. I had asked for all of it, the pain and the misery, by saying I want to hike the trail. This had been my conscious choice because I knew I needed some sort of colossal struggle in order to grow; I needed an adversary and I chose the trail. And of course the trail was more like a friend who teaches you how to take a punch; so I'd take it in the teeth sometimes and say, "Well, this is what you wanted. You can't turn back now, this was the whole point!" I also knew from experience that I had to tough out the hard times so that I can enjoy the exhilarating, euphoric ones later; if I left prematurely, I'd miss out on all the beauty, the kinship and the fun times.
On the trail, I got interviewed by a couple of young women who were working on making a documentary on women hiking the Appalachian Trail and thanks to the way they set it up, I felt pretty comfortable in front of the camera. They had made it so I could focus on the hiker who had offered to facilitate the interview. I was looking at her while the camera was off to the side a bit. After the interview, which was centered on things like, what did I do before the trail, what motivated me to start this journey etc, the hiker posing the questions called me a bad ass and that was probably my happiest moment on the trail at that point. People say you don't need other people's acceptance, but if you were living your life in a place like India as an untouchable, you'd know better. I'm not trying to compare my life experience to that, but I've been ostracized by my peers from time to time and it hurts. It hurts doubly when you've gone through foster care in your early childhood.
So this moment when someone had done the exact opposite, when they had respected my struggles for what they were, I little light flickered inside. I was starting to feel a bit of pride for what I'd already done with my life. Something I was unable to do before. Someone else had said this farther down the line. The camaraderie of the trail raised the image I had of myself. It took completing the trail to feel pride for my own accomplishments, it took doing the trail for me to stand all the way up off the mat. I had felt as though each blow in my life came to me while I was already on the ground because I didn't have the courage to stand up. And that is why none of the hardships were able to drive me off the trail; I had to learn to love and accept myself with all my shortcomings knowing that my perseverance can help me prevail if I learn to move forward with confidence no matter how the chips may fall; I needed help growing up but I needed it particularly from the Appalachian Trail. And thank goodness it fell into my lap the way it did.
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