Re: [at-l] look at me stunts and Goose Creek,etc

Ramkitten

I have never seen this said about thruhiking before.  It may have been out
there and I just missed it.

But the reason I'm writing is that your feelings about talking to non
thruhikers about thruhiking are very common among veterans, esp. combat
veterans, talk to non-vets.

I would suspect that you have a slight understatement in your, "I own the
experience and the memories and everything I take from it for the rest of my
life that, in some ways, are hard to explain to people."  I suspect that you
have found, and will increasingly find, is that you cannot explain it --
that they just don't get it, no matter how clear you try to be.  They just
don't have the points of reference to understand the words.  Not that your
choice of words are inadequate, but rather that for them the essence, the
meaning is just not available.  What they hear becomes so distorted that it
hurts.

On the good side, your, "I don't know...hits me, and I stand wherever I am
like a zombie thinking about the trail, how it affected me, little
details--the minutiae--that suddenly pop into my head and I smile
remembering" is so very, very much better than flashbacks and 1000 yard
stares. However, I suspect something of the same  process is going on in
your mind.  Although in your case, it sounds like something to envy.
Something to  hold on to.

Maybe OB could share some light, or point out how far off base I am.

Chainsaw

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