We do not need to explain our love. We only need to show it. -Paulo Coehlo

It’s been 10 days since I said goodbye to the Camino de Santiago and started a pilgrimage of another kind.  The one towards my new life.  

From La Coruña, I flew on to London for a celebration of what would have been the 54th birthday of the friend who’s name was written into one of the shells I threw into the sea.  From there, I flew to Denmark and packed up the few things I wanted to hold on to, and then on to Osaka, Japan for a weekend of reuniting with the family and friends that I’d left behind 3 months earlier.  Tomorrow morning I travel on to Tokyo to start a new chapter in life of self-employment and to apply the lessons the Camino taught me.

There are a million things I could write about what the Camino gave me, but I find myself at a loss of how to write it.  Of the challenges I overcame, of the release of years of self doubt and poor self image, of the strength and new confidence I have.  10 days later, I’m still receiving the lessons of the Camino, still having overwhelming moments that bring me to tears.  The emotions going through me are probably the same that every pilgrim has, so I’m comforted to know that there are people out there who understand, because it’s impossible to find the right words to explain it.

 

I could also write about how amazingly beautiful the cathedral is, how sweet it was to see the locks, sentimental items, and iron boot on Cape Finsterre, how majestically violent the waves crash against the rocks in Muxia…but I won’t.  It’s a bit selfish of me, but those are things that I don’t want to share, I want to keep every detail of it locked into my memory for me to have when a bad day happens.

 

The one thing I can write about that the Camino gave me, however, is love.  I have always been a bit of a hopeless romantic, but over the years, that became somewhat tarnished by relationships ending, by friendships fading, with the rise of online dating and the internet shoving images and articles about what we should and shouldn’t do for/with our partners and friends.

The most important gift the Camino gave me is exactly in Paulo Coehlo’s words.  We owe no one an explanation of why, how, or who we love, we just need to make sure our loved ones know that we love them.  We don’t need to make excuses for or feel badly about our bodies or the things we enjoy, we just need to love ourselves just as we are.  When I walked into the cathedral square, the first thing I saw was a couple embracing and that’s when the most important gift really came to me.  My heart was so full seeing that kind of love, tears sprung to my eyes and I was grinning like a lovestruck fool.

It was in that moment though, watching them, that I realised that over my journey, I came to love myself again too.  My flaws, my fears, my strengths, my intelligence…I am ok with all of them and love who I am.  It does all sound very new age-ish, but that’s also something I love about myself, that I’m not afraid to say ‘I love you’ to people,  that I don’t hold back or not show love for fear of scaring someone off.  Love is the most powerful emotion in the world, and  yet also the most simple.  Love is innocent through all crimes, pure through every sin.  It can, and does, cause pain, but it is also the greatest healer. Once realising this, everything became so much brighter and burdens on my head and heart lifted.  I was so excited to get to London to be with so many people there that I love.  It was overwhelming a little to be at the celebration of someone that I’d just spent 2 weeks thinking a lot about while carrying a shell with his name close to my heart, but it was a wonderful kind of overwhelmed.

Love surrounds us every moment of our lives, even when we either can’t see it or choose to ignore it.  I, for one, have had my heart and eyes reopened for me and am so eager to see where my new Camino will take me now.

 

Originally this blog was going to end here, but it’s actually now just starting.  There will be more Camino de Santiagos in my life, but life itself is a Camino, and I am happy to be a pilgrim on it.  Sitting on the flight to Japan last night, an HSBC advert came on, with the line ‘Life writes the best stories’, and I couldn’t agree more.

I am so looking forward to the next chapters of the story that is the Camino de UchuuJin.