And It Begins, Again

I always seem to be doing this, my life is in doubles, or re-dos or restarts. I start something, and start again, but I suppose the most important thing is that I finish them, eventually, it all gets done. Which is what this is; a restart, a continuation of what I started back in September.

Lets give a little background shall we?

I heard about the Camino De Santiago from my father first. My father usually has fantastical ideas about fantastic things and I go "Oh yeah, that's interesting" and get on with my life. But this really got hold of my Dad and my Uncle, several talks and a book (Buen Camino) and a film (The Way) later I was hooked too. I was sorting out plans and money and flights and it was suddenly the last family holiday (again) and I was all booked in to go. Ten days hiking across the Pyrenees from St Jean Pied de Port to Bilbao on the Camino Frances, with my parents, my uncle and a family friend.

We started with five, that soon grew to six when I found my exact twin on the first day climbing through the clouds and the forest with a stone in my shoe.

^Twin^

 By the time we reached Pamplona on day three there were around nine of us, coming and going, drinking in a bar here, going with others to get ice cream, and others again to get Tapas (or Pinchos if you want to be picky). Like a great flowing moving village making their weary way across the beautiful Spanish countryside. By the time we got to Estella we had managed to gather enough Irish people (and people who wanted to be Irish) to have a yearning for the old spud, so dinner was produced, the best stew ever made, that cemented us as a family, but it didn't stop there, by the time we were due to leave, I would say that I had met over twenty people who I knew could be my friends for life.

Miracles kept happening, a thought about a walking pole, and one materialized in the bushes, a kitty followed us for kilometers, I saved people and people saved me and it changed me. But it wasn't to last, we had to head back to real life. Ten days was all that our lives could spare us. I had to go and finish the last year of my second degree, and it broke my heart to leave.

It is hard to think of it now, hard to imagine the pain that I felt that made me cry for the first time ever on leaving somewhere. It wasn't even the where, it was the who, the people I left there are still with me and will always be.

Which is why I am wary this time around, on the eve of my return to that last town Santa Domingo Del Calzada, I am sick to my stomach, because this time I go alone.

Without my mother with her handy medical no nonsense loving attitude, creator of stews and happiness, my father; the kindness that dragged me onwards through my silly emotional outbursts, my Uncle; seeing the world open out before him and making me remember that I could sing again, and Kevin; who was the handle that helped me open the door (don't bring up the deodorant).

I'm on my own.

I'm leaving this whole life of a student behind me, moving through this path of the Camino to come out the other side a fully functioning member of society. I'm leaving uncertainty behind, leaving self doubt and self pity by the way side. I am doing this, alone, for me, to figure out how to become proud of what I have done, happy in my decisions where I am, and to be confidant to face the future with those that I choose to be beside me, near or far.

But I'm allowed to be wobbly the night before.

Right?