“It doesn’t really have anything to do with my education.”

That is what I usually told people who asked why I was going to walk El Camino de Santiago for college credit. I was going to go and see some new sights and eat some new food and smell some new smells. I wasn’t going to really learn anything.  Now, at the End of the World, I realized that I have loved and lost, faced parts of myself that I have fled for years, and acknowledge aspects of myself that I never thought existed.

I’ve spent a lot of my life living inside my head. My general lack of self-confidence kept me from befriending people I admired and taking chances that could have become stories for my grandchildren. Buying a plane ticket to Spain for three months was the first in a series of decisions that made me very uncomfortable. One click meant a commitment to being uncomfortable. I didn’t speak Spanish, know how to use the subway, and I had never left the United States.

I walked in solitude, I hitchhiked to Portugal, and I spent the weekend in a beachhouse with a thirty three year old woman. If I hadn’t just said “yes”, I never would have realized that I am comfortable in my own company, learned proper hitching etiquite, or discovered so many uses for olive-oil.

Most days of my Way have been so dense with living that the day before is quickly forgotten. Most nights have been filled with delicious dinners, cozy social drinking, and dreams so vivid that they are hardly distinguishable from reality. I have lost myself in the wilderness, and smiled when I realized that I had absolutely no clue where I was heading.

I pushed myself out of my comfort bubble, and I had the greatest adventure of my life.