Sunday, May 19, 2013

May 18, 2013

Today started out rainy and bleak, but despite that, I vowed to make it a better day. I put on my rain gear and left the albergue. The first order of business was to climb another big hill, but according to the guidebook, after that, the rest of the day was mostly flat. I was looking forward to some easier terrain, although the guidebook has been known in the past to understate some of the ups and downs. My rain jacket is designed to keep the rain out, but that means it also keeps body heat in, making it very warm, very quickly.

Today as I started up the hill, the raincoat immediately made me too hot. The heat and the confining clothes made me claustrophobic, compounded by the fact that the strap around my waist that I'd just tightened yesterday because of weight loss, was now riding up around my stomach, because of the added bulk of the rain jacket, making it harder to breathe. I was only about halfway up the 1 km long hill when the claustrophobia and the heat combined to bring on a panic attack. I couldn't breathe and I started to cry, those huge racking sobs you get as a kid leaving you gasping for air. The perfect storm.

It all became too much. I had nowhere to go, no one to turn to for help, nothing to do but stand on the side of that hill and find a way to pull myself together. After that, all that was left to do was to start walking again. About 6 km later, I stopped in a cafe for breakfast. Having access to internet, I decided on a whim to email the pensión I had planned to stay at about 8 km farther down the road and make sure they had room. I never assumed the answer would be no. But that's exactly what they said. No room at the inn, or in this case, the pensión. I checked with the other two places in the same town. Both said they were full for the night.

Knowing I couldn't make it to the town after that one, I was stuck in this town, having completed only 6 km for the day. What made it worse was the fact that this was the one town I swore I'd avoid at all costs, because the albergue is infamous for its bedbugs. Now I was about to find out if the rumors were true. Remember those issues of mine that are being brought to the surface. Um. Yeah. BIG issue here. The good news is that, all the rumors must have caused the albergue to take some extra measures, and all was fine.

Feeling very lonely and unhappy, I began to wonder if this was really something I was supposed to do after all. Maybe I'd misread the signals. Maybe I should just go home. Maybe my lesson in all this is not how to exceed my own expectations, but instead to learn how to fail. Miserably. In the spirit of the day, my friends Alex and Ana, who have been my angels here in Spain, tried to call me to offer some support. The connection was just good enough to hear Ana's voice, but not good enough to have a conversation. I sat in that cafe and cried like a baby in front of at least 30 people I didn't know. I was broken.

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