New Beginnings
As much as I love South America, I wanted a new beginning. — somewhere in northern Portugal
Today’s my birthday. It’s also been 14,695 miles (and 8 countries) since my last update.
Every year on my birthday, I chose a word to define my year ahead. Not a new year’s resolution, but a theme. Last year, I chose precision. I was looking for stability; to precisely and deliberately work towards goals that I felt were foundational to the rest of my life. I pictured my life in Seattle, my career at Amazon, and a very adult life of hosting dinner parties with friends, building on my corporate talents, and watering plants.
This past year has been anything but stable. Since my last birthday, I’ve lived completely out of a suitcase — a stressful string of vacations and business trips, a cross country move, and then a layoff that sent me hurtling through South America. It was, in almost every conceivable way, the opposite of what I wanted this year to be.
This year has been difficult, but I don’t regret it. I talked on LinkedIn about how learning Spanish through immersion, as well as a series of other mishaps, has taught me lessons about failure that I would’ve never learned in an office. And not just that, but it’s challenged my perception of what I’ve long considered important. This year, I stood in front of the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia, or Iguana Falls on the border of Brazil & Argentina, wondering how my life could have ever felt complete before this. I laughed with new friends in Sao Paolo and Buenos Aires, imagining alternate lives in which I just chose to stay. I wondered how else I could make my life bigger.
What’s Next
One week ago, I left South America. As a few of my friends can attest, leaving, for me, felt difficult. I came to South America thinking I’d go on vacation for a few months before re-entering my “real life” in the United States; instead, I felt like I had found new homes several times over. I sat in my Uber to the airport wondering if I should just skip my flight, if I should just stay.
I did, very reluctantly, fly from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Lisbon, Portugal that day. As much as I love South America, I wanted a new beginning — and I wanted to take a really long walk.
When I send this newsletter, I’ll be on my third day of the Camino Portuguese, a 280km pilgrimage from Porto, Portugal to Santiago de Compastela, Spain. I’ll walk about 20km a day for two weeks (give or take a rest day), carrying three days’ worth of clothes in a 40L backpack. If the rumors are true, it’s going to be painful, I’m going to get blisters, and I may not finish it at all.
Celebrating my birthday on the Camino was an intentional choice; most people who walk the Camino have a reason. I first heard about the Camino from a German I met in Bolivia, who walked the Camino after a 10-year relationship ended. He told me about a friend he made on his Camino — and who he still talks to — who walked the Camino 8 times after his daughter died; each time he walked, he would see her.
I don’t have expectations for my Camino (I learned this lesson from my ayahuasca experience), but I hope that I’ll further reflect on what I’ve learned in this messy, chaotic year, and how I’ll apply it going forward. I hope that, in some way, it can mark a new beginning.
And that includes keeping this community more updated. If you’re a paid subscriber, I’ll start sending paid-only posts about my missing four months in South America. If you’re a free subscriber, I’ll occasionally include some brief recaps. Either way, expect to hear more from me before the next 14,695 miles.