Days 30 to 33 and beyond

May 28, 2018

Days 30 to 33 and beyond

It's been over a week since I stopped walking and it still feels a bit raw to reflect back on my final four days. They were hard, but halcyon.

Arriving in Santiago felt like more of an ending to me than I expected, and getting up at 6 to walk on day 30 was a struggle. My body was definitely getting to the end of its ability to walk day after day, and I started to develop a shin splint in my left leg. Thankfully, the KT tape helped this time around, but it took us a long time to get through the first 33 km day, longer because of a pill mix up. Spanish ibuprofen looks remarkably like Canadian nyquil, and I neglected to tell Laura that I had both in my pack--the day was a bit of a blur.

After essentially camping out in a strange municipal by donation albergue with no supervision, we set off at 6:30 am for our longest day yet: a 40 km push that would allow us to take our time on a 15 km stretch to Fisterra the following day.

Although we had two walking days left, with various physical and emotional ending points along the way, I realize now that the 40 km walk to Cee and the ocean was more of a symbolic ending for me than any of the others. Together, we pushed our bodies to new limits, making a long decent to the Atlantic--all the more wonderful because we hadn't expected to see it until Fisterra.

The following 15 km day was like a dream. We walked slowly, taking our time to see and experience as much as possible, stopping at two glowing beaches along the way, one that we had to ourselves for a stretch. It felt incredible and impossible that we had come so far, mountains to seas.

I recognize now that I had been preparing myself mentally for some time for the walk to come to a close, trying to reconcile feelings of joy and sadness, fullness and brokenness, just as I had done throughout. How wonderful that the internal close to my journey came before the physical walk ended. I wasn't worried about the end. I just was--happy, alive, bright.

In comparison, arriving at the 0 km marker at Fisterra felt pretty meaningless to me, although the Cape itself was amazing. Looking out into empty ocean made me understand why they called this place World's End. Although I enjoyed the trip to Muxia on the final day--we sent our packs ahead so that we could walk free of physical burden--I didn't feel the need to be there in the way I had before, confirming for me that my Camino, at least this time around, had come to an end.

How strange and surreal it felt, in the days after arriving in Muxia, not to get up and pack and walk, to travel back the way we had come in such a short time by bus, and not to push ourselves. Flying to Barcelona, further west even than we had began, in a matter of 2 hours was stranger still and left me feeling disoriented.

I am continually grateful for Laura's companionship on these final days. The ends of such intense experiences, even if they lead to new beginnings, can be emotionally challenging, but it was a gift to support each other during that ending time after going through so much together.

Much earlier in my journey, I spoke with Jonah about the pain of endings, and he wisely said that the spaces inside of us filled with love are sacred and don't go away when we leave a person or a place behind. Rather, we make new spaces, filling them with the abundance of love in our lives. Knowing that the time I have with a person or in a place is short--like the Camino, with its geographical and temporal end points--shouldn't hold me back from opening to love. As I return to life off the trail, I hope I can continue to step into the void--the places of vulnerability and unknowing--heart open, take in those moment of pure brilliance, cherish them, make spaces for them within myself, and let them go, even when it hurts.

On my final morning in Barcelona, heading to the airport bus with my pack at 4:30 am after a day and a half on my own in the city, I met a new friend who had just returned to our hostel from a night out. She hugged me, and as I began to leave, she said, "And she's walking again!" She was right, but walking or not, I'll be moving forward--learning, loving, and living through the full and broken moments on the way.