Uncharted Thoughts.

In 2016, I walked roughly 1100 miles from John O Groats to Lands End, Via North Ireland and Ireland, with nothing but a large backpack and an old iPod. Since its completion, it has been one of the key folded pages in my life so far. A defining moment that changed me in ways I find hard to describe. However I am, for the first time, putting pen to paper, or should I say fingers to pads, in an attempt to explain the whole ordeal. I will be featuring multiple blog posts about this adventure, this one will focus primarily on why I did it. Why did a 21 year old boy decide to walk across the U.K on his own. Well read on to find out.

Why?

Illness and masculinity.

In 2015, I had my first experience with illness within the family. Previous to this I had little experience with death or the understanding of life fragility. My grandparents on my fathers side had died when I was very young, so the concept of loosing someone that I loved was distant.

However, in the summer of 2015 my mother fell ill with breast cancer. I was a boy still, maybe not in the eyes of society but my maturity was still in its adolescence.

I was angry, hurt and confused on how I was supposed to act. Upon finding out about my mothers illness I stormed from the house like a teenager that has just found out they are not allowed to go to a friends house because a important family event was aligned on the same day.

Looking back now, it is clear that this was the wrong thing to do, and is one of my life regrets. I should have stayed, comforted my family and been an adult about the situation. Rather than drawing attention to myself, I should have been there for my mother, father and sister.

Later that same year I was ushered into dipping my toes into the world of responsibility by a voice in my head that was always nagging at me. I decided to attend my mothers chemo-therapy with her, I am unsure which session it was, the first or the second, but it was a turning point in my attitude towards what masculinity is.

Now, I am not going to pretend that I never relapsed into immaturity within this time period, in-fact, some of my most shameful moments took place in this period. Yet, in the back of my mind there was always a voice telling me that what I was doing was wrong.

In the fall of 2015, I decided that I wanted to do something to both help my mother and to challenge myself as an individual. So, I got to thinking about what this challenge could be.

Skeletons in the textbooks

Prior to the walk, in the back of my mind there has always been a raging itch, a hot red poker slowly melting its way into the core of my still developing personality, rotting me from the inside. Although there are positives to having a deeply routed resentment, the cons outweigh the positives five to one.

Like most dyslexics, school was hell on earth. The best part about it was lunch time and seeing my mates on a daily basis. When it came to authority and learning, I was like a deer dazzled in the headlights of a bullet train. Caught off balance by a ever increasing belief of my own ‘stupidity’ (a word used frequently by my overlord teachers) and the stagnation in my ability to read, write and spell past that of a seven or eight year old. I began to sink very quickly into a hole of self destruction and a lack of self confidence.

It wasn’t until the end of my schooling that I was officially recognised as a dyslexic, but the damage had already been done. By fourteen, I had almost fully given into the idea that I was stupid, lazy and worthless. Like a relentless ocean crashing endlessly against my brittle sandstone mind, the teachers had carved my own destiny before I even set off from the starting line.

As stated prior, there are some positives to the endless bombardment of negativity. Especially, if you have a incredible supporting family like I was lucky enough to have. My mother was just as relentless as the teachers, if not more so. She told me on a daily basis that I was smart, bright and that once I found my ‘thing’ the sky was my limit. Her positive influence gave me a fighting chance. This, with a stubborn personality made me a fighter. Once a goal was set, there was no stopping me.

So, after looking at some walks. I decided to go for the largest one I could within the realms of my limited budget. To prove to those who doubted my abilities that they were wrong. This has stuck with me, even today. When completing my degree, while walking across the stage before my peers, family and friends, all I though about was my teachers, from junior to secondary school. Their contorted demonic faces looming over me like a shadow, a constant reminder that I was not enough for them, that I would be serving them burgers at at McDonalds for the rest of my life (Direct Quote from Mrs Snore).

When I jumped over the barrier at the Lands End sign, I didn’t think of the achievement I had just accomplished, my mind was on Mrs Snore, Mrs Smith and Mrs Wilde and all the others that deemed me too stupid to make anything out of myself. Their bitterness, relentless negative output and bullying was the reason I completed this walk, it wasn’t so much the why, but the how I did it.

The Secret Life of a angry Dyslexic.

My final reason for why I did this trek across 5 countries was simple. I loved to hike, always have and always will. A passion passed down from my fathers influence, I was obsessed with the idea of being in the wild, on my own, walking across some of the most beautiful sceneries in the world.

I had never heard of thru-hiking, but I had heard of Christopher ‘Super Tramp’ McCandless. A solo adventurer that had trekked, biked, hitched his way across the US in an attempt to find himself. Now, I’m not really a believer that travel makes you ‘find yourself’. I don’t think wearing baggy hippie pants and sitting in a meditation position while paying some skilled artist 30p for a henna tattoo does anything good for the soul. However, experiencing hardship and overcoming genuine obstacles is the closest thing you can come to ‘finding yourself’.

I watched ‘Into the wild’ and ‘the secret life of Walter Mitty’ on repeat throughout 2015 and found devout inspiration to go out there and find out what I was made of.

What have I learnt while writing this?

John O’ Groats to Lands End was my spartan test. My baptism into manhood. Although I was far from understanding what a man was, it taught me valuable lessons I have yet to forget.

Tune in next week to find out where you should begin when planning a long distance hike and the lessons I learnt. Lesson one, don’t sleep in a tent next to a school, people find it odd.