Since I left, I've been writting myself letters and notes in a journal a close friend gifted me. I use thus as a way to calm myslef when I find myself in a panic or a heavy depression wave.
"Look at how lovely the good times can get"
I wrote in a journal entry back in October. I had left home a few days prior, and was in this natrual high of actual achievement.

"I know it will never stay this solid, but I really need the good times to make the bad bearable. I need to have the bad times to really notice the good.
My world is a scale, and it's always rebalancing. Life is like water, it's always flowing and changing. My life story is not solid. I am a lake, that flows into a river. I have cuttofs and creeks, and thriving wetlands. I have to support all of the life that inhabbits these places. I support them, and they me."
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"Could you start the walk later?"
Somebody asked me this in Denver. My immediate defense told them no, I have to start it when I planned. No sooner, no later.
"Are you sure you can walk it with that ankle of yours?"
Again, defense. I said I am gojng to walk it, so I will walk it. My ankle isn't doing that bad, really. I can go for a few miles before I have to give it a break.

The thought of changing plans scared me. What if I defer and find myself somewhere I didn't plan? How can I trust myself if I don't do exactly what I had in mind?
I am a river, I am fluid. Life keeps moving, and nothing is set in stone.

I had planned to start the river walk in a week. I was going to couchsurf and maybe WWOOF in Minnesota so I could start my trip 'on time'.
I'm currently a few hundred miles south of my start point, and it's clear I won't be starting in a week.

Something has brought me back to Dallas, Texas. I've come to realize the river will still be there months from now, and I can start it then. I also am looking into biking it, as my ankle is causing me constant pain.
I can change my mind, I can make my own course. Life is fluid, and I enjoy seeing where it will take me.