Searching for the right stuff

My mother tells me that I lead a glamorous life. That I am special and that I am different from the norm. I can’t help it, this is just the way I am, but I don’t always want to be this way. I remember when I was a little girl, always feeling like I didn’t fit in. This situation got worse when I became a teen. Having been raised in a different place I always felt like had missed a few steps growing up and everyone was in on a joke that I wasn’t privy to.

Very little has changed. I still feel like an outsider a lot of the time. The cool part about growing up is that you get to meet more people. You are not stuck to your school or neighborhood. If you don’t fit into the group that you are a part of, you can simply find one that you do fit in. The truth is, no one is that special or that unique, if this was the case, then there would be many, many lonely. There is someone for everyone. By this I don’t mean that there is someone romantically for someone else, but I do mean that there is always someone who gets you. Who doesn’t need you to explain who you are or what you stand for, how you feel or what you believe.

The thing about feeling like you are different, which is not the same as not fitting in, is that sometimes you are very alone in the decisions you make. Sometimes, you make decisions that don’t make sense even to you. That’s where conviction comes in. My conviction waivers very easily when it is put up against the opinions of the people I love. I am very susceptible to other people’s opinions of me.

Strangers I met on the Camino and that I have met throughout my life all end up telling me the same thing after only one conversation with me: you have to stop trying to please other people. The massage therapist in Los Arcos who felt my feet told me the same thing. And I wonder, where the hell does this need to please everyone come from? I think that I place all this expectation on myself and try to make everyone around me happy to the point of taking something away from my own personality.

I know that this is something that I need to stop. I think some time alone is going to be good for me, to observe this tendency in myself. The important thing to realize in order to help in this process is that this situation has very little to with others and everything to do with me. The people who love me are going to love me for me and if they don’t then I don’t need that type of love.
I feel like the most flawed human being in the world at times, and then I get my head on straight and stop giving myself so much importance. I realize that I have flaws, I have deep flaws that run under the skin and that are going to be very difficult to get rid of or work around, but I am willing to try and overcome these things.

Life away from the Camino is a lot harder than I thought. . I think I will be in transition for a while. I am in Madrid. What has made an impression on me more than anything is how little people smile whilst walking along the street. When I go out to run in the mornings in the park by my house I see old men and old women mostly walking their dogs. None of them smile, and when you smile at them they seemed more disturbed than pleased.

I think that if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m due in London tomorrow for my best friend’s wedding I might have put my pack on my back again and walked out of Madrid. There is a Camino route that leaves from Madrid and I might just hop on it when I get back. I realize that some of the times that I said or heard “Buen Camino!” that it was more out of custom than anything, but still, it seemed like a very nice thing to say and hear.

Now I totally understand how and why people do the Camino many times throughout their life. If you every get around to doing at least a bit of it, even if it’s without a pack and only for a week it would be worth your while, there is no experience like it in the world. Nature, the people, the history, the closeness to yourself and also to God, in whatever form you want to see him.

I miss the yellow arrows. Somehow they were always there, pointing me in the right direction, now I’m not so sure, the steps I take and the decisions I make are all up in the air and I’m not sure whether they will land heads or tails. A fellow pilgrim told me once that if you wait long enough, the yellow arrows eventually appear in your life. In the park where I run there are two trees with yellow arrows I take them as symbols for the fact that you can find them anywhere.

The thing about yellow arrows is that in order to find the next one you have to keep walking. Sometimes, time passes and you get worried that you have gone the wrong way, you start doubting yourself and every step you have taken since the last one, but if you have faith and keep walking, the next one eventually appears pointing you in the right direction. You just have to keep walking.

Searching for stillness

Anyone of you who knows me personally knows that I am a "culo inquiteo" (basically that I have ants in my pants). I always need to be doing something and must have something to do. I make lists and all sorts of plans, I make so many plans that it is impossible for most of them to come to fruition, but still, having plans eases my antsiness.

But after I finished the one camino, I am now in another, the path to stillness. This Camino promises to be a harder one, one that will challenge me more than any other could.

It´s my birthday today, and of all days, I never thought that I would get as much pleasure as I have out of a run, cooking and sweeping the floors. I am enjoying it and at the same time going a little bit nuts. I will try to arrange one social thing per day, not very long so that I don´t completely pull out my already thinning hair.

I went to a run today. I´m not all about making resolutions for birthdays and coming years, but I figured if ever there was a goo dplace to start, today was a good time. I was only able to jog for 20 minutes and frankly felt a little disappointed. In my head math (and I´m not good at math to begin with) since I am able to walk for nine hours a day then I should be able to run for at least a third of that time, or at least one 5k all on it´s own. I guess I need to move to Veronicaland where things like this are possible right off the bat.

I´m in an apartment alone. Our place in Madrid is small, sweet and all I need. I went food shopping yesterday and basked in the idea of cooking my own food for the first time in a long time. I made a fruit salad, roasted veggies and and omlette.

I am trying to practice a Buddhist principle that I have heard a lot about, the idea is simply to be present. If you are washing dishes then do just that, don´t wash dishes and make a list in your head of all the other things you ust do. This practice suits people like me well, though it is far from an easy one to achieve.

I went to a psychologist once and after two or three sessions, she determined that there was nothing to be done with me if I wasn´t on mind-calming drugs. As I am intimidated by authority and tend to be very, very polite I didn´t tell her what I later thought she should do with the pills, I simply stopped going. I figured it was taking a lot for me to have enough faith in myself to heal and having someone who had no faith in me to boot was going to be an automatic failed attempt.

I´m not good at being alone. I´m not good at standing still. I can´t run. I lack discipline. These are the things that I am going to try and start correcting. I know it can´t be done in one summer, I know all of this can´t be done in a year even, but I am starting now, this long and crooked path toward what I perceive to be self improvement.

I think the Camino may have not given the the answers I needed, those were not there for me to find. Instead I think Santiago opened my toolbox and showed me that I have all the tools necessary to achieve the things that I want in life. Yes I know (mother, dad, and everyone else reading this) you´ve been saying this for years, but this is not your battle to fight or your book to write, happily and sadly, the only person who can truly achieve this is me.

I can´t guarantee that I won´t go absolutely crazy on days and want to tear my hair out, but those days will pass, and eventually, I will be still.

Not searching for now, just standing still

As the time passes, I am still in Santiago. I´m not going to Finisterre, not yet at least. I am not sure the words I look for lie at the end of the earth, I think what I need is inside and will come out with time, patience and peace.

Probably one of the most important things I am living at the moment is that I am in the process of learning to accept. This Camino in no way has been what I have expected, at no time. The ending has not been either, to be frank it´s been quite anticlamactic, very commercial and full of people. I would love to go back three weeks ago to where I was mid journey, but I was walking toward something.

I am deciding to feel what I feel, not try to plan things and enjoy what is going on, whether it is seeing the Cathedral from the top of a Ferris wheel, or eating CHinese food for breakfast.

The end of the world sounds like a beautiful idea, but what´s at the end of the world? TO be honest, who cares? I don´t want to know a limit just yet, I don´t want to not keep walking, maybe there is a new beginning at the end of the world, maybe there isn´t. When I was in doubt, I asked Santiago to guide me as to whether I was to go or not, just when it seemed like he wanted me to, he stopped me, through no doing of my own.

I am not sure what my path ahead holds for me, but I welcome the surprise. I look forward to feeling the pain, the glory, the happiness, the sadness and yes, even the imaginary blisters I will have on my feet from walking the next path.

My feet are tired, and I want other things. Walking to the end of the world is just that, nothing more. The answers will just as easily come at a McDOnalds as they would in front of the Atlantic, that is what I have learned on the Camino, that acceptance of the now will clear the brush and show you the path to your truth, which is different for everyone.

Veronica

P.S. When I got to Santiago I bought me a dress and shoes, I guess where some people realize they don´t need to take care of themselves as much, I want to reflect on the outside what I feel on the inside. But if I had to be in pilgrim clothes forever, that would be cool too, I have never felt so beautiful and so wanted. Wanted by women, children, old men and everyone that crosses my path true attraction is something that doesn´t need to be seen through the eyes, it´s felt within.

Searching for a feeling

I am not a good receiver of gifts, especially if I like them. I always take long to process things, traumas, occurrences. When I arrived in Santiago yesterday I was in a daze, I´m afraid that daze hasn´t quite passed. There are moments when I feel numb and there are moments when I feel sad. I am sad that I will not get to continue of the Camino.

I understand those who continue walking to Finisterre, and though I might do the same tomorrow morning, it seems like a sorry attempts at holding on to something that is already gone. The saying "the journey is more important than the goal" (or something) must have been talking about the Camino.

In the coming months I´m sure all this blur I have in my head will clear and I will be able to discern one thing from another, right now I just feel sad. I have met so many wonderful people, learned from them and have been able to give them love in return that if I had a valve to measure the love in my body I would be almost on full.

Santiago is a happy place for most, it´s the end of a goal, a triumph, something that they have wanted for so long. I think that for me it started out that way and then became about the journey.

I don´t know how I am feeling yet. I wish I did, I wish I could write this beautiful sonnet, a song, a diatribe, but I have nothing. This trip has been nothing if unexpected, even in this.

Perhaps if I am able to collect my thoughts together I shall write something this afternoon. Now I stand as a writer without words, a creator without feeling and a pilgrim at the end of her road.

I´m not sad. I´m not angry. I´m not happy, excited or scared. I am in Santiago, and that´s it.

Searching for the instruction manual

My Godmother says that there is no instruction manual for life and that sometimes you make the wrong decision. She´s right. After a few days of disconnect that feel closer to a month I resurface with nothing to say, but I will try to express my feelings through this medium.

The Camino is a blur. I don´t remember any of it at the moment, blisters seem familiar and so do certain names and faces. But when i try to put my finger on anything it´s like trying to look for detail in houses from a bullet train that is crossing a small town. Two days ago I was at the pharmacy and as I was paying I hear a "hello!" when I looked up, I had no idea who the person talking to me was. She asked if I remembered her but i said I didn´t, I must have had a conversation with her at one time because she knew my name was Veronica, I felt very embarrased and ashamed.

I´m not afraid anymore. There was a time when I was afraid of everything, what i chose to do, what i didn´t choose. Too afraid to make the wrong decision on the big things, I simply decided to make smaller ones until something came up. Many things did, but they just led me farther and farther from the things I wanted and more importantly, who I am.

There is an all purpose sentence that i have been hearing all the time and it seems to have seeped in to the point where I found myself repeating it today myself: "it´s the Camino". Something goes wrong "it´s the Camino", something goes right "it´s the Camino", something freaky happens "it´s the Camino". I plan to incorporate this in my daily life and whenever anything happens i will simply turn to people and say "it´s the Camino" at which point they will right me off as either crazy or Buddhist.

I wish life had instructions. I wish that you knew what step you needed to take and where you needed to go, but it doesn´t, and I´m starting to think that I prefer things that way.

I know that I have mentioned New York, London, New Zeland and a bunch of other places as my possible next destinations, but I have no idea whatsoever of where I will end up, and I´m OK with that now.

I have decided that Miami is not for me. Not its rhythm, not its layout, not its lack of mountains or valleys, and you can keep the Everglades.

The love that I have received throught his blog, both from people I know and don´t has been with me every step of the way, telling me it´s OK to be imperfect, it´s OK to not have all the answers, that in the end, it´s OK to just be me.

I thought I had to have all the answers in my life or that i was going to fail miserably and that scared the hell out of me. I was determined to get to Santiago no matter what. But I´m already where I need to be in my life. I´m already in Santiago, and the irony is that I know I´m going to physically get there, and to Finisterre, if I don´t it´s OK because it´s not where I was meant to go, but even if I do, i´ll still have to walk, every day.

I´ve slowed down these past days, and now I want to get back to putting one foot in front of the other, it´s hard to get back into the rhythm, but I realize that I don´t always have to be walking to move forward, that I don´t have to have a direction to get somewhere, that´s it´s OK to take a break, and that no matter how scared of snakes I am, they will not disappear. The snakes are everywhere even inside and it is those snakes that are the scariest. You just keep walking and you push through.

Sometimes I walk quickly and others slowly and sometimes I stop but now I know that no matter what I do or how fast I move, one day I will no longer be able to take a step, I hope that day is a long time away, but until that day I will move at my own pace, to my own tune and on my own path. I hope to see you there, but if I don´t be blessed on your path, because it´s the one you should be on.