I'm Done Being With Myself
Dear B & V, The hum and beeping were a distraction from the question being debated in my head - "should I stay or should I go?". I was in my fourth day of a six day hike on the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail (LHHT) in Pennsylvania. During the trip, I faced multiple obstacles: a lack of sleep due to busy mice, storms and noise pollution and the Mid-Atlantic being gripped by the biggest heatwave in years. However, these were not causing me to ask this question. It was loneliness. I chose this solo trip to discover if I could break my four day record of being on the trail by myself. A few years prior, I had hiked the Appalachian Trail (AT) during an extended weekend. The difference between the LHHT and the AT is the amount of traffic. Each day and evening on the AT, I crossed and shared conversations with new people. Traversing the LHHT, I encountered a dozen hikers. On day three and four, I saw no one until the end of day four. I spent 36 hours by and with mysel