I woke up, checked the weather app, and saw rain forecast for the next ten days, thinking about how a wet tent and soggy socks would ruin the trail. Then I realized I was sleeping on a mattress with sheets, the farthest walk today would be to my mailbox, and that I had already summited Katahdin, finished my 2,200‑mile hike, and flown home to Virginia.

Four months and eighteen hundred miles earlier I was in Tennessee, hiking 17‑22 miles a day, rising at five and rarely sleeping before nine, with only brief zero days spent mostly sleeping or scribbling blog ideas, and I was exhausted.

Yesterday I met an old friend at the grocery store; when she asked how the hike was, I could only reply with single words—Hard, Fun, Rewarding, Scary, Wild, Amazing—showing how hard it is to capture five‑and‑a‑half months of physical, emotional, and spiritual breaking and healing.

Grief taught me to accept the unexpected, and the trail forced me to feel every emotion—joy, fear, anger, worry, and deep despair—until I emerged from challenges like Mahoosuc Notch okay, learning that acceptance, not avoidance, is the true path through both grief and hiking.