It is what it is

I've walked 245 miles! We left at noon to give Screefreak a little more time for R&R and got in an easy 7 something miles to the shelter. Another rainy day. I don't know for how many days, but it has rained every day for a while now it seems. The rain isn't normal rain either. It is very sporadic and changes in a heartbeat from a drizzle to downpour and anything in between. The only thing I'm sick of right now is the "swoosh swoosh swoosh" of my rain pants. I made a muddy mess of things trying to get into my tent tonight. I took my pants off outside but then stepped on them inside out so they are a muddy mess out there. Oh well, the inside is dry and mud free - that's the only thing that counts. I literally stripped outside of my tent and just left my clothes out there in a pile to deal with tomorrow. Everything is wet, there isn't anyplace to hang stuff really and it is supposed to keep raining, so what difference does it make really? The point that counts is that I'm in my tent in dry clothes and my tent is keeping everything wet on the outside!
So, another deep thought today entitled: "It is what it is". This popular corporate catch phrase kept running through my head when I was thinking about the differences between being out here on the AT and life in the real world. Out here, everything is just accepted. Nobody expects or gives apologies for the sweating, stinking, farting, peeing, snotting, heavy breathing, fast or slow walking, etc. These are things that in the real world have perceptions attached to them that are cause for embarrassment, apologies, ridicule even...and out here it just is - and it is accepted as such. I love it. I love it because I think that this way of looking at things is so much healthier and I wish everyone could see life this way. Again, this may not make sense to you and I could go on about it more (I thought about it a lot today), but I'm recording it more for my own looking back later. I guess it is about judgments being made again, about others, about ourselves, about what others think of you or your ideas of others. Instead of all that - it is what it is.