Physically it is hard. Popping ibuprofen before you even start to kill the aches from yesterday. Sore feet and knees and back. That is the physical side.
Emotionally? Time to think. Concentrating on your next footstep tens of thousands of times in a row frees your mind. No tv, text messages, phone calls, appointments, and the only demands are to make the next town.
Time to consider what is important and what was not. Time to see the world at walking pace and not 70 miles an hour. Time to appreciate the taste of food when you are famished and to appreciate the effort that went into it. And most importantly time to consider all the time you have wasted.
Every night laying in bed, feeling the aches, thinking about the distance to cover tomorrow. Every day latching onto thoughts until you have thought them through. Regrets, pain, fears, and desires boiled down to just making it to the next town.
Sometimes wondering why life was so chaotic before. Did you need to waste time on that or spend time away from them? A distillation of your life into just the moment. A consideration that perhaps what you have spent valuable time worrying about did not matter.
An understanding of time becomes apparent. The realization that a month out of your life has actually freed up time for you. A promise to yourself to savor the moments when you get back. A belief that all the heat and walking and pain and restless nights have prepared you to look anew at what happens around you every day with new eyes.
And lastly the realization that if I had only done this 10 years ago how different life would have been. And planning the next Camino....
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