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.