When I was born, speechless and screaming, my mother assigned me a name that I grew up happily, if sometimes coyly, sharing with others. Although I didn’t create it, I worked ceaselessly to fuse both inward and outward versions of myself into all that is Madelyn. Never did I feel a separation between the two. When we began the Appalachian Trail, I nearly dreaded the thought of a trail name. I worked to be Madelyn and I was afraid that losing this could mean the fall of my namesake sandcastle – the demise of my carefully built persona. My worries washed away into a tide of community and friendship. Trail names didn’t have to only represent an embarrassing joke or philosophical belief. They were the birth of a new you, a version that abandons expectation and embraces freedom.

I was being called Whoopie for managing to out eat a hungry group of hikers and still fit in a whoopie pie for dessert. More so, I was Whoopie who appreciated the immeasurably fleeting moments and lived in the now. Whoopie who hiked from Georgia to Maine. When we reached the northern terminus, I didn’t understand whether I lay Whoopie to rest or carry on my outdoor alias. The trail was now finished and I had more complicated things to unpack than my sleeping bag. I had to acknowledge this life that felt more like some exciting alternate reality. I simultaneously celebrated my accomplishment and mourned the end of my dirtbag AT lifestyle.

The further I got away from my end date, the more distant my experience seemed. I felt an odd identity crisis ensue since we summited Katahdin. Conversely, I was struggling to find Madelyn without the AT, without Whoopie. It was a beautiful chapter that deserves the best of bookmarks, if only to flip back and relive from time to time. For now, I channel the tenacity and courage that Whoopie helped me harness. It is another cycle of growing into the present and shedding the past. I’ve been here before, in a place of uncertainty and new beginnings, and this time I have 2,000 miles behind me to prove that I can do it all again. Continuing to rise and fall like a phoenix, I get up stronger each time.