How time flies! It has been one month since I walked into Santiago with my 10 kg pack and my aching feet, heart full of wonder at all the sights and people and places I'd discovered on my way. One month later, I'm still processing the meaning of it all and trying to put into practice all of the lessons and thoughts I had on my journey. I'm 3 days from heading back to Canada, and my mind has started to switch from travel mode back to thoughts of reality, so while I still have a few minutes to contemplate everything Ive done in the last few months, I'm going to take advantage...
The Camino de Santiago took over my mind last Spring, and since then life has become momentous again. Leaving my job and friends and life in Victoria to walk 800km is not something everyone is prepared to do, but I'm not surprised to find there are a lot of people on the Camino that have done just that. There seems to be a real desire out there to escape reality for a while and take time to contemplate life. With the global economy the way it is and high unemployment rates, I wasn't surprised to find a bunch of people without work trying to decide their next step. Some were walking to get some distance from a bad situation, and some were just walking to fill the time before a new job or classes started. Lots of people were retired and walking to fulfil a dream. And there were even some who were walking to fulfil someone else's dream.
It seems to me that the majority of people were walking alone, or as alone as the Camino will let you. There are so many pilgrims that, as the saying goes, you can start the Camino alone but you will never finish it alone. I was surprised at how many couples there were, because I'd started to think of it as an extremely personal journey. For me, it was rare to spend more than a few days walking with any one person, because inevitably your natural pace or distance covered in a day would be different from anyone else's. That being said, I found that I had more confidence to walk longer hours and arrive later to hostels when I was with someone else. When I was alone, I wasn't as likely to push on an extra 5 km because those last 5 were always the most filled with thoughts of the pain in my feet; walking with someone usually meant the conversation was more interesting and distracting.
Even so, I felt like the couples I met were somehow missing out on a more personal experience. By the end of my own journey to Santiago, I admit to being jealous of the couples who were still happily walking together, because I realized that they were having this amazing experience with someone they could later share their memories with. They would have someone who understood the life-changing experience of it all. They would have someone to share their exhultation when they walked into the Cathedral or when they received their compostela. That was certainly on my mind the last few days before Santiago, and I fully admit that catching up to a few special people who were ahead of me became my motivation for the 30km days I walked before arriving. A lesson learned: it is the people in your life that make the path worth walking.
So with that lesson on my mind, the Camino just confirmed my decision to relocate my life back to Regina, my hometown, to spent the next stage of my camino with those special people already in my life: my family and friends.
