Epilogue

We flew home. I had been gone for 36 days, Ben for 150 days. Unpacking the bags took just minutes. Unpacking thoughts and experiences will take months.

I made the mistake of starting this final entry on the way home. For days I couldn't click "Publish" because what I had written just felt off. Ben and I have laughed about not having a clue about what we were getting ourselves into with this, and that it was so much harder than we thought it would be. For me, the same is true for returning home.

The first reentry shock came at DFW Airport when I realized Ben couldn't go into the bar for a beer and snack with me. We watched the movie "The Way" on the way home. In addition to causing a touch of PTSD, I have to say for a movie it's pretty realistic.

Ben's friend Mason has a sister who walked the Camino Francés and claimed that it "changed her life". On the journey when he told me this, something I had heard from others, I silently dismissed it. "This is really difficult, and special, but life changing? I don't believe that is the case for me", I kept to myself. "This is feet changing, but life?"

I still think that statement goes too far for me. However, it's true that your view of modern life is altered returning from something like this. I deleted everything I wrote about mortality, how I want to spend my time in the next phase of life, things I've decided I want to accomplish, and answers to the other questions I set out on the Way with. What I will admit is how different everything looks when you return, especially how odd it feels to return to life as it was, as if nothing happened for all of those weeks. I liken it to how the Pevensie kids must have felt when they returned from Narnia. Life had continued on while they were gone. Did all that really happen?

So we returned to traffic lights, television, automobiles, drive through coffee, dishwashers, supermarkets, fitness centers, conference calls, hockey games, happy hours, microwave ovens, mailboxes, closets, parking garages, refrigerators, lawn mowers, email, washers and dryers, and the same comfortable bed every night.

I made a Spanish Tortilla (the pilgrim's lembas bread). It was pretty good.

Many people have asked if we would do this again. Our answers have been different but we agree it's just too soon to even talk about. Professor Kirke told Lucy he had tried to go back through the wardrobe many times, but that she would likely return to Narnia when she least expected it.

Ben moved back into the Hockey House at UW. He enrolled in summer classes, got a job at Starbucks, and put skates back on his pilgrim feet. I moved back home to Bennett Beach determined to retain my stamina, find a few more meaningful projects, and learn barre chords.

Our relationship will be different. I knew after Europe that he was coming back to Seattle, but not coming home. Our lives are going to change. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. But there’s one thing that will never change.

In the Spring of 2018, I walked 500 miles across the entirety of Spain by his side.

Time stood still.

Buen Camino indeed.