Towards End

It's an odd feeling, the end. Of course, it's never really 'The End', as such, just the finish of something and the beginnings of countless others. However, that doesn't stop you feeling loss whenever you reach one of those points. We tend to want to avoid such things as ends and goodbyes, despite their inevitability, which makes walking towards an end of something of a unique and liberating experience, especially something so great as this walk. Striding into the the end of what is, for most pilgrims, a life changing or hallmark event, familiar feelings of nostalgia and the urge to put off the inevitable arise. But the very nature of the path drives you on. There is a destination to be made, and after so long watching the waymarks wind down toward the 0km mark the thought of finishing becomes positively exciting. But this is the paradox. For a long time - over two months in my case - you have been walking towards the imaginary city of Santiago. Days filled often with wonder and exhilaration, and countless small moments with strangers who became friends, and would again become strangers, all while moving through beautiful landscape - not a type of experience one wants to willingly give up. And yet part of the tradition of the Camino is that it ends, and that this will generate feelings of sadness. This is the important bit; the emotional journey is conceived of as as fundamental to the Camino experience as the physical. So the feet step on, and the distance markers wind down (in Galicia they go so far as to mark them in 500m increments), and you walk towards the end happily, proudly. It's a lesson in acceptance and, quite unexpectedly for me, that sometimes things have a course they ought to run, and that that is good.

And you reach the end of the road.

And then you walk on.