Ants in my Pants / Why Now?

We have just over six weeks left before we head up to Springer and start our journey. I' getting antsy and can't wait to start walking. We have finally finished purchasing all of our gear, and I now have nothing to keep my mind off of the hike. I am ready to drive to GA tomorrow, and I would probably be trying to talk Lauren and Steve into heading out early if there were not so many other things that need to fall into place before we can leave. We still have money to save. That is the biggest challenge over the next six weeks. We have to save as much as possible while continuing to pay our bills, and live our lives. Even better, I still haven't figured out how to break the news to my boss that I want to take a 5-6 month leave of absence. That isn't going to be an easy conversation, "I want to leave town as soon as we start to get real busy. Then I'll come back right as business slows." They'll probably think I'm crazy at first but I know that they will understand why I need to do this now, regardless of what is going on at work.

Why do I want to hike now? Or at least, how I can verbalize it at this time? I have wanted to do a thruhike of the AT for a few years. I wasn't sure if I would ever do it, and thought that if I did, it would be after I retired or won the lottery. When Lauren got interested and decided to hike this year, It took me a few days to decide to go along. I was on board with her hiking from day one, although I did have some fears for her safety. I could tell how important it was to her, and knew that with her strong will, I would be stupid to try to stop her. When I started to think about it some more, I realized... maybe it is my time too. I'm still fairly young and healthy. If I wait until I'm retired to hike the trail, it will be much harder on my body, and I may not even be able to make it. If I wait 5 or 10 years, I will be further along in my career, and will probably not want to risk any career setbacks that may happen because of the hike. Not to mention, Lauren and I may have a family by then and we will not be able to drop everything and escape to the woods for half of a year. There is a multitude of reasons why right now is my time. I must do it this year, this season, this March.

I also want to talk about why I want to do the hike. What the root cause of these urges are. I'm going to have to do that later because it's bed time, and I have to work tomorrow. Good night!