It has been about a year since I made up my mind to take this next year off and travel. Specifically, it was to walk the Camino de Santiago - because that desire has been burning for a while...
It was about 2011 when I saw "The Way" with Martin Sheen. The significance of Tom carrying his son's ashes and finding his own "way" and sense of adventure, was a powerful message. I was facing the end of my marriage and needing a big dose of repentance. It looked like the perfect journey for me, a long arduous walk through France and Spain. One, that even if you walked alone, would allow you to be surrounded and supported by many.
Then in late 2013, I saw "Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago" a documentary by Lydia Smith, with some friends through Meetup. Listening to the stories of these vastly different people and their vastly different reasons for walking, confirmed my desire. And a friend and I decided Summer 2014 would be perfect for our own ways on the Camino. But pending "Omi-hood" took precedence and I decided to bow out to be there for my daughter and my soon to be arriving grandson.
In March of 2014, we celebrated the arrival of baby Elijah and I have found incredible joy in being Omi to an amazing, smart little boy. I do not regret staying around.
Around this same time, I had some tumultuous relationship issues, and an epiphany. I was at a point in my life where no one needed me to be there. Not in the sense, that I was unwanted, but that the people I'd been caring for were now capable of doing so without me being in the same home. I was no longer obligated to "keep" a home. I had no huge debts and now no dependents. I was totally ready and able to up and go.
The Journey
by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
