Day 23: La Isla – Villaviciosa (25,4k)

The night before, I ask the (dead-sweet) hospitalero what is included in the €2,50 breakfast at Albergue de Peregrinos La Isla. “Bread, juice, coffee,” he replies. “Jams, a sweet… you will love it!”

I should’ve known. Filled with spongy bread, cream and sugar I waddle off from La Isla somewhat nauseous together with the Belgian, whom I keep forgetting is Belgian, so I will call him Waffles. Also because waffles are wholesome and cliched, and Waffles is anything but. In fact, Waffles, who is 25 and wears a lot of jewellery I’ve never seen before, reminds me a lot of my younger self: deeply passionate, excitable, talented, capricious, wise, ambitious, bit lost. You get the feeling he might just be writing a sequel to The Sorrows of Young Werther on his cafeteria breaks. The Sorrows of Young Waffles. If I’d been a decade younger I’d have been all over that shit.

Instead, I get an opportunity to appreciate how much calmer I feel now than I did at 25. I know, laugh a minute. But I am more stable. Less angry. More forgiving. My need for validation isn’t as acute. And I just understand things better. Take things less personally. Roll with the punches.

However, I do sometimes feel like a wise / realistic / life-worn old grandma in his company, and have to bite my tongue not to ruin all his youthful romanticism with my somewhat cynical lexicon of grown-up concepts like love-bombing, neurochemical addiction and trauma bonds.

At any rate, the conversation is interesting as we walk along the coast to Colunga, where we have some coffee before he says he wants to walk alone that day. Him! The cheek! That’s my move! But hey, at least I’m good at taking my own medicine, so as he trots off I sit down to do some writing and give him a head start.

This turns into half an hour of deep shit, and when I finally bounce out of Colunga I’m wondering if Waffles sprinkled some of his magic mushrooms into my cafe con leche. My feet feel like clouds! My heart like a sun! The backpack weighs nothing! I even break my No Headphones Rule to listen to my playlist of Swedish childhood classics, feeling as I sing along to Carola that everything is going to be not just okay but GREAT. I’ll write an amazing novel! I’ll move to a fantastic place! I’ll keep meeting incredible people! Whoop whoop!

Perhaps this is a good moment to clarify that I have been professionally evaluated for bipolar disorder (at my own request, no less) and was denied access to this club of deranged geniuses. But man, do my emotions swing. As I take my raincoat off for the second time in two hours, it strikes me that my emotional climate is not unlike the actual climate of Asturias, where you’ll get sunshine at nine, showers at nine thirty, sun again at ten, and a thunderstorm at eleven.

It’s a fucking pain to dress for, I tell you that much. And I am me. What must it be like, I wonder, to be with me?

These swings often feel like a good argument to go on antidepressants. Cause who the fuck can deal with a climate like that? These swings make me feel incomprehensible, to myself and to others. They make me want company one day and solitude the next. They make me seem like a very happy person, when I’m actually incredibly neurotic. And they make me start a ton of ambitious projects, which then leave me very disheartened if (when) they don’t turn out as great as I’d imagined.

Maybe, if I went on antidepressants, I wouldn’t have that? Maybe I’d be stable? Realistic? Content?

More like, I don’t know… if not Southern California then at least… Paris?

Can I be Paris?

Or should I just accept that I am fucking Asturias, and just learn to dress for it? Pack a raincoat? And hot pants?

No sooner have I thought this than I want to stop walking and rename the blog to Raincoat & Hot Pants: learning to pack for the Asturias within. But I’ve already renamed the blog three times. Goddamnit. I just need to sit down. Stop being such a storm.

Or I just need a blog name that can contain all my changes of heart. Ditto a relationship. I mean the lonely hearts ad writes itself: B THE CONTAINER 4 MY STORM! ME: TEMPEST. U: TEACUP?

Alright chill I can hear y’all loud and clear. Gotta be my own teacup. Getting there.

But then, maybe not. Maybe I don’t need a teacup at all. Maybe the problem is not the tempest but that I keep pretending it’s all sunny. Keep packing for Playa del Carmen when I’m clearly on a segment of Spain’s northern coast that receives more rain than Ireland but where you also need to wear factor 50.

Asturias at 12:04

Asturias at 12:18

Right. Well that was a fruitful spot of Metaphor Boogie. Thanks for the shrooms, Waffles.

All I have to do, then, is learn to pack the emotional equivalent of a raincoat and hot pants. Forever. Taoism? Back to Guemes for another jaunt through the Catholic Church? Acceptance and Commitment Therapy? My own, organically-grown system of tools and values? Sounds time-consuming. Let me walk on it.

Met a big fat cow

#moodswings #soulsearching #CaminodelNorte #travel #anxiety #hiking #CaminodeSantiago #antidepressantsornah