PCT: Time & Timing

One year ago today, I took my first steps on the Pacific Crest Trail beginning a journey that I envisioned would take me across approximately 2,650 trail miles over the course of nearly six months. That journey ended rather abruptly after only 110 miles less than two weeks after its start.

Time has a unique way of influencing one’s perspective.

This past year felt like an eternity. In recent weeks, this past year has transformed itself into a fleeting blur.

Those first steps on the PCT seem as if they occurred merely weeks ago.

As we find ourselves entering into the second year of a global pandemic, I’m hopeful for a potential shift of my own perspective of time. The prospect of a post-pandemic world still seems to live in a somewhat distant future, despite many promising developments in recent months. When we reach an eventual tipping point that finds our world returning to a greater sense of normalcy once again, my suspicion is that this extended moment of waiting will become a fleeting blur, too.

A year can be an eternity, or a blink of an eye.

A year can be both an eternity and a blink of an eye in a contradiction of logic.

The timing of my thru-hike seemed just right for quite a long time… until it wasn’t.

My return to the PCT is still a blur of uncertainty. Despite my hope of returning to the trail this past summer faded as quickly as it grew, new hopes have already emerged for a possible return in a scaled back version for either this summer or at some point next year.

Embracing the notion that time and timing is often beyond our control has been an important lesson for my own growth.

What seems inevitable, may never become a reality.

What seems impossible, may become a reality in a seemingly instant moment.

Time will only tell what eventually transpires.