Acceptance?

When I started my Portuguese Camino, I reflected on what I would like to ponder on my long walk. The concept of acceptance immediately occured to me. I knew that I had been grappling with it in my recent life and I thought pondering it while I walked would be helpful and beneficial. 

 Boy oh boy, have I had a crash course in acceptance! It all started with insomnia. Probably from jet lag. Okay, I thought as I lay WIDE AWAKE the first night before we began to walk, this is a test. Can I accept that I'm going to be dead tired as I walk my first 12 miles? I guess I'll have to, right? Not gonna stop now. So we took off and dropped our bags off for transport.

 Little did I know that the place we left our bags didn't have a live human to receive them. So, there we are with our bags and no one to receive them. The bag transport company assured us that they had access to that guest house and we could leave our bags there. Of course, we had no way in, until we grabbed the door as someone left the building. BIG MISTAKE! HUGE!. Which we were told by an angry woman who told us we were lucky she didn't just send our bags off to the authorities. 

The bag SNAFU was taken care of, but not without a bunch of fear and stress on my part. 

Accepting that I made a big mistake was one part of the struggle and accepting that I might get what I deserved was a whole other part. 

Thanks to the kindness of Emmanuel at our next guesthouse, we were guided through the difficult process of retrieving our bags with a hefty fee of 40 euros. 

 Now for the big finale. I'm blissfully walking along the Camino, seeing beautiful ocean vistas and watching my brave husband in more and more pain. The walk was not kind to him. His back was in spasm and every step of bliss for me was accompanied with him wincing in pain. He rallied for two days and finally we came to accept that we were not meant to walk any more Camino. Not without serious injury. So, accepting that ending the Camino was best for both of us has been my next lesson in acceptance. It has been difficult and a huge shift in our plans.

When I have visited ashrams, I have learned that the universe puts obstacles in your path to help you learn in that sacred setting. The Camino is like an ashram for me. In this short journey I have learned a few lessons about acceptance. 

Perhaps a day may come when I walk the Portugese Camino, but today is not that day. 

 Shortest blog ever!