You are the way

We arrive to San Juan de Ortega just in time-- I don't think my body could have carried me another step.  This kind of exhaustion is still completely unfamiliar to me.  I hate it, but I love it.

I have felt many different kinds of fatigue.  The absolute physical exhaustion after playing three ninety-minute soccer matches in one day is exhilarating, especially after winning.  I remember that the feeling of relief when I took off my cleats and sat down to stretch was pure bliss and felt well-earned.  The mental exhaustion of writing a twenty-page paper in another language always left me a little hazy, sometimes to the point of not being able to string together a full sentence in either language.  I always felt so proud of myself.  I would sit back with a sigh, re-count the page numbers, and click the save button about eight more times, just in case.  With only about 5% brain function remaining, I would shut my laptop, promising myself that I would proofread it tomorrow even though I always knew I wouldn't.  The emotional exhaustion of depression used to consume me entirely, rendering me unable to operate normally in society.  I was so worn out that I couldn't feel any emotions at all.  Love, joy, angst, misery... I felt nothing.  

I guess the closest I can come to describing the exhaustion I feel now is is how you would feel after crying for an hour.  Not just a few tears, but those shoulder-shaking, soul-wrenching sob sessions that make you sleepy for two days and leave your eyes burning and red.  When you're done crying, you feel relieved but still haunted by what induced the tears to begin with.  Then add the searing blister pains, muscle cramps, sunburn, and overall got-hit-by-a-semi-truck feeling.  That is the exhaustion of the Camino.  It leaves me with a combination of all of the symptoms I described earlier,and then some.  Pride, exhilaration, numbness, shame, awe... 

Emily and I have likened the Camino to a lifetime playing out in the time it takes you to walk 800 kilometers.  Every day, you feel the emotions you would normally feel in a month's time.  You are forced to face demons you didn't know still existed within you, you feel things you haven't felt in years, and you have hour after hour after hour of walking into the distance to think about it.

The ups and downs, the fellowship, the diversity of people, the honesty, the struggles and successes, they all represent your life.  The pack you carry is the weight of your material belongings and your emotional baggage, and the kilometers represent the milestones you've reached.  You have nothing but your own two feet propelling you forward.  You are the vehicle in which you must traverse life.  Someone might offer to carry your pack for a few kilometers if you can't, but ultimately you must carry it yourself.  Others will be there to help and guide you as best they can, but it is your Camino.  You ARE the way.

The blisters are my imperfections that I can only heal and learn how to deal with.  My scars are my past, and without them I would be full of gaping wounds.  The exhaustion is, well, exhausting, but it's a sign that I'm alive and living as much as I possibly can.  It's what makes me fall sound asleep every night to be able to wake up so I can do it all over again.

I feel more like myself right now than I have ever felt in my life.

K

San Juan de Ortega, Spain