In my mind, when I pictured this time, coming home from a friends wedding in Bend, I had thought things would be so together. I’d be more fit. I’d feel a bit more confident about our upcoming journey. I’d be creating the plan for starting my private practice again. And yet, I am here, still not back in shape, house disorganized, a garage of stuff that still needs to be sold. It occurred to me, maybe this is it. Maybe it is not some future image of myself that will be completing the Camino. It will be my same, not as in shape as I used to be, can’t always find the right words, painfully empathic, self.

It reminded me of a woman named Dee Williams I once heard speak about receiving a terminal diagnosis and deciding to build a tiny house. She said she realized “all of the sudden, you have to get real comfortable with who you are. Because who you are may be all you are ever going to be.”

38 days to go…