I’m writing this memoir for those who need to see someone standing strong farther down the road they’re travelling.
In February of this year, I stood transfixed in my living room listening to my Camino story on CBC Radio’s The Sunday Edition. I hardly recognized my own voice, which sounded like it had received the audio equivalent of airbrushing. But even though I knew the story, I was almost in tears. I had written something that, to me, felt remarkable.
Then came the annoying voices in my head: How will I ever write anything this good again? And did I really bare my soul and tell Canadians I’d been married and divorced twice, that I was a cancer survivor, that I was insecure and afraid? It was all true. The Camino de Santiago, a legendary network of pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in northwestern Spain, wasn’t just about the physical journey. I had travelled an emotional distance as well.
But within minutes, emails, texts, and Facebook messages poured in from friends and family congratulating me on both the writing and vulnerability of the piece. The story resonated with Camino pilgrims, cancer survivors, and people alone again in midlife. I was reminded that the reward for revealing myself is connection—that we are all more alike than we are different.
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