[at-l] Thinking thoughts

Thu Jan 15 07:16:11 CST 2009

That sounds a lot like the Introduction to an AT trail journal.

Jim Bullard
http://jims-ramblings.blogspot.com/

2009/1/15 Tenacious Tanasi <tenacious_tanasi at yahoo.com>

> I was sitting hear reading on Whiteblaze and browsing the net checking
> hiking/gear links that have lay dormant for oh so long in my Firefox.  And,
> it crept up on me... Springer Fever.  I'm getting the itch again...and it's
> not the same one Felix gave me. ;)
>
> All of the reasons that I have put off a thruhike have been taken away,
> will soon go, or have already left me.  What reason do I have to remain
> stationary?  Why live here in a town where I am just so miserable?  Why put
> up with the continued abuses of my ex?
>
> The other night after telling him that I was not going to battle for the
> next 7 years over the kids, he taunted me telling me to just move away from
> here.  Hey, you know what?  That's not such a bad idea at all. Not having to
> deal with him being such a childish, pitiful, mean prick is quickly, and
> very sadly, overruling my desire to stay here and fight for the rights of my
> daughters to have their mother in their lives.  And all the while watching
> him make the same mistakes with them that he did in our marriage.  Lack of
> intellect, communication, motivation, effort, and honesty from him will be
> the bane of my daughters' existences.
>
> Yes, the thought of not being near my children and truly getting to watch
> them grow pains me almost as bad as knowing I'm not going to get to grow old
> with the one I want to.  However, the reason I went to court was to give my
> girls their voice, and if they really wanted to be with me they had the
> opportunity to have said so.
>
> I truly don't think I can stand living here watching another woman raise my
> girls whose idea of keeping them busy is setting them down with a 2 liter of
> coke and a family size bag of chips in front of the television while she
> slips off to pop her cocktail of daily pills.  I just can't do it.  It's
> killing me psychologically.   All of this...it's just killing me.
>
> I've gotten into the habit of taking a ride up the river on my lunch break
> from work.  Today, as I sat there in my minivan watching the water roll
> lazily over the rocks, I wondered where it was going.  If I were a drop in
> that stream, where would I be going to?  Where would I end up?  What would I
> be at the end of that journey?  With envy I sat and watched for a while.
>
> In an email to someone the other day I wrote, "*I just want to disappear.
> But, I can't right now, and that makes it all the more excruciatingly
> painful.  I want to go away where no one knows me.  Where I can leave
> everything I own behind.*"
>
> That is what I really want to do.  Just leave everything behind.  But,
> right now in this moment in time I just really don't know that I can start
> fresh.  As I also wrote in that same email, "*The sad part is....I don't
> want to start fresh.  I just don't even want to be any more. *"
>
> As I drove away from the side of the river, I thought of that one little
> drop of water in that stream.  While it is seemingly insignificant, without
> it the stream as a whole would be the less for its absence.  But, would
> anyone really miss that one little drop of water?
>
> Just what is it that is holding me here?  My girls... maybe at one time...
> but now?  What is keeping me from going away and starting afresh?  Beginning
> a new life in a new place with a new me?  And, how do I find that new me?
>
> I have to seek her out.  I have to delve through that cold, bereft mountain
> of stone of my current self and uncover that chrysalis where she slumbers
> awaiting the completion of her metamorphosis. I have to get to her.  I have
> to set her free.  I need for her to spread her wings and fly.  Because I...
> I cannot... this me will not survive any more of this life.  I don't know
> how to fight any more.  I am not tenacious....but SHE...she is.  Hidden in
> all of her golden glory behind those fragile walls she awaits freedom.  But,
> where exactly is she?  How do I get to her?  How to set her free?
>
> I think I need to think on this.  And, the best way I have ever been able
> to think thinking thoughts is to walk.  Walking with nature has always
> uplifted my soul, and in those moments I have been able only to grasp the
> most  fleeting glimpses of her.  I have seen the hint of her glowing faintly
> in the shadows of the trees upon the mountains.  Through those golden,
> gossamer walls that have entrapped her she smiles enticingly at me.
>
> However, those moments have been ever so short lived.  I have not been able
> to remain in search of her for any extended period of time.  Duties and
> responsibilities have forever drawn me away from her.  And, I do think it is
> time.  Time for me to be out there in those moments for longer than fleeting
> glimpses.  With the last vestiges of my floundering, weak soul I have to
> discover where she is hidden and set her free... to replace me so that I may
> finally find rest and peace.
>
> Yes, it is time to think those thinking thoughts on a long walk in the
> shadows of the trees upon the mountains.
>
> Tenacious Tanasi
>
>
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