I'm snuggled with Bill, and I'm thinking how much I'll miss him on the trail. He camped all the way here with me, strategically using me as a sleeping pad, and I'm sure he'd love the PCT adventure, but he would not want to follow the trail. It's not in his nature. I suppose that's one of the things I love about cats. We're shut in my room, door closed all the way, which I pretty much never do, because my housemate suddenly made it very uncomfortable to live here. I was really hurt and pissed off and confused when it happened, but I've realized that it's for the best. It's pushing me into a better situation, one that will allow me to save up bunches more to do the PCT.One of the things I'm looking forward to about the PCT is that I just get to be a hiker. I'm me, walking, eating, sleeping, paying attention, telling myself jokes, talking to the flora and fauna, getting caught up in conversations with strangers. Nobody telling me what I am or am not, nobody making judgements about my life. It got exhausting trying to fit in boxes, live up to people's expectations. That was part of the reason I moved to Portland--I wanted more community, less conservative assumptions. But you can't run away from problems, not by moving across the country, not by hiking from Mexico to Canada. So you do what you can to make the world better, to be better understood, to assume positive intent.
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