Oh, here it is … my first official PCT post. How exciting!
India is done. The only thing I have to do now is get my featherweight ducks in a row and get to the trail.

I have had the date of April 15th as a departure date in my head since the day I decided to walk the trail, but it seems that is not actually my departure date. I will be flying into LAX on the 17th of April. An old friend will pick me up and drive me to the trailhead from there. I will therefore start walking either on the 18th or 19th.

A few days off. Such a small thing, and yet, the decision to change my departure date will change my entire life. You think I exaggerate? By leaving on a different date, the set of people I will meet could be completely different or at least the timing of meeting the same people will be different, which means our interactions will be different and the experience or perception of such I will have will be different, so I will grow in a slightly different way than I would have if I had left on the 15th. So in the end, I will be a different person than I would have become had I left on the 15th. Oh, butterfly effect, how quickly complex you can make things for those who think too much about such things.

On the other hand, it will probably change nothing, because I was most likely always meant to leave a few days later. The universe likes to keep us on a need-to-know-basis, or maybe just me. It knows I like to be surprised and speculate about the what-ifs and rumble about it aimlessly on this site. Wasn’t it so much better when I was getting up at 5:45 everyday for a full day of yoga teacher training and I didn’t have any time for such nonsense? Don’t answer that.  I believe that everything is exactly as it should be, and I am exactly where I am meant to be, so I was always meant to leave later than the 15th and meet the people I am going to meet in the fashion I am going to meet them … and that is an encouraging thought (yes, Chuck, I did just quote Gandalf)

Let’s just hope that said encounters will be interesting enough so that I have actual stories to write instead of nonsensical philosophical speculations.

I’ll go do something productive now, like finish sewing my backpack.