More on my fears

Packing made it to this blog first, but my main worry is that I won't be able to finish the walk. To be perfectly honest, I haven't trained at all. Sure, I walk a fair bit—compared to some—and I go to the gym 2 to 3 times a week, but that feels like nothing next to 22 km a day—which is about what I need to cover to make the trip in 35 days.

Walking around Madrid and the Museo del Prado yesterday—more on that later—boosted my fear exponentially. I walked maybe 8 km, and stood a lot, and my feet are unhappy. Right now, I feel like there is no way I'm going to make it. Sore feet make me cranky. Then again, according to Jonah, most things make me cranky, including cleaning, school work, marking papers, poorly edited writing, loud noises, my family dog, waking up in the morning, having to get ready for bed at night, cats, people driving cars, people in general—the list goes on.

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Speaking of people driving cars, I'm not just worried about my feet. It's been almost 3 years now since I was hit by a car on a trip to BC, but I still have flare-ups in my thigh and hip, and with them comes all the memories of the accident and the aftermath and a lingering feeling that I am forever altered—that I will always carry this pain and it will only intensify as I age. Dealing with sore feet will be one thing, but facing my fear of frailty and physical pain is another thing altogether.

Me at the Saskatoon airport. I don't know how to do photo faces. 

And here I am gearing up for el Camino de Santiago and over a month of sore. My original plan for this trip was to tool around Spain. I learned about the Camino about 2 weeks before the start date of my trip, so the decision was rather last minute—almost unheard of for me. But it felt right. When I told Ahren I was thinking about the trip, he seemed genuinely nervous that I was acting on newly awakened religious fervor and that I expected to have a life altering spiritual experience on the trail. I'm certainly not closed to spiritual experiences, but for me, the walk is a goal I can work towards.

Before deciding to walk, I was worried about the trip for other reasons. Although travelling is wonderful, wandering aimlessly around a country by yourself when you've been struggling with depression for 2 plus years seems like a bad idea. My hope is that the Camino will give me time to contemplate and focus my thoughts—or at the very least a host of blisters to think about instead.