Goodbye PCT!!

It was a warm beautiful day in the Northern Cascades, Thursday September 27th,the sun was shining, the weather perfect. I was struggling with the final miles, trying to savor it, trying to hike slowly and embrace the last of my journey. I was sure I still had a few miles left to hike, and then all of a sudden, there it is was, the US/Canadian border and monument 78, it happened so fast, like a dream, there was the end. I said nothing, sat down with my pack still on and stared at it, I felt so unable to speak, unable to describe or understand what I felt at that moment. It was one of the most overwhelming moments of my life it was nothing that I thought it would be, it was a pretty bitter sweet anti climatic moment. I thought there sitting on the ground staring at the monument, I walked here from Mexico on my own two feet, I hiked 5000 miles in 16 months for this moment and there it was, it was what I had been waiting for, but it was not what I imagined. I guess I knew deep down that it was just a monument, that it had to end, that all my expectations needed to be forgotten, but still I felt so sad, happy, proud, scared, strong, weak, I felt like I was waking up from a dream. For the last five months my life was spent outside in the peace and beauty of the wilderness, I hiked 20-30 miles everyday and adapted to the life of simplicity, beauty and peace and now that life was over. I did not want to cry because I felt sure that if I started I would never stop. I sat there at monument 78 for five hours, and then hiked .2 of a mile to camp, I could not allow myself to go any further or to leave the PCT. The next morning I went back to the monument as if I was looking for something I thought was there and I again found the same thing, a monument, a register and thats it. After sometime I felt like it was okay to go, to hike the 8 miles from the PCT into Manning Park, those were the hardest miles I have ever hiked. I dreaded going back home to face the life I left, I was sadden because life on the Trail is so much better than any life and I knew saying goodbye was just too much for me, it made my heart so very sad and so I tried to delay it, tried to stop it, but nothing worked. I ended up at Manning Park BC, Canada anyway. I have now been off the PCT  for four days and I still feel sad, my heart aches in the worst way. I feel great loss having to stop that lifestyle and I know without question that I will feel sad for awhile, that readjusting to life back home will be hard. I am a very different girl than I was when I left in April and I wonder how I will deal with life back home. I wonder how life will be now. In many ways I am very proud of myself, I spent so much time, energy desiring the completion of the PCT, when I fell short last year, I came back and started all over and this year, I made it. But, I guess it was never the accomplishment I needed, I guess I still have a lot to learn from this journey, I guess I don't truly understand it all yet, and in time hopefully it will all make sense to me. I do know though, that I miss the PCT, that saying goodbye to people I met out there tears at my heart, I know that going home frightens me.  I fly home to Colorado tonight, thats it, the PCT is over and now I have to see what happens next, there is no more miles on the PCT left for me to hike, I did it, I thru hiked the PCT. I still have so much to reflect on and write, to process and to figure out, I still have so much to work through and though the PCT seems like a dream now, I lived it and it was the most amazing time of my life.