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.