A600AASS Day 18 - Palas de Rei to Melide
31.10.22
20 Km
Broken tonight. Like, feeling pain in my body, my head, and my heart.
Wind threatened the trees and rain came at us from every direction. Paths turned to trickles turned to streams turned to floods. Everywhere unpaved was mud and water.
Waterproof socks filled from the inside out and a misapprehension about Compeed blister plasters meant that, having hobbled in to Melide, the skin came clean off my heels with my socks. There were yelps of pain as Chris gently tended to the wounds with alcohol, and there were tears that came from a much deeper place inside. Boy I’m crying a lot these days.
Chris, in the absence of any clear signal of how I was really feeling, had made good time in to town. As I watched him power ahead, my fear of abandonment came flooding back in full force.
My mind raced, thinking of all the ways I could fail and all the ways I could get the love I needed in the way I needed it but was too afraid to ask for. I returned to an old fantasy: going to hospital. That way, in my mind, the world outside stops and everything is taken care of. I’m safe for a moment.
Those deeply-riven patterns die hard.
Knowing that we’d both need a good night’s sleep, Chris booked a hotel at an earlier coffee stop. We wouldn’t get as far as we’d hoped, but the rain and the pain had taken it out of us once more.
We started to talk about what happens beyond Santiago. Chris was still keen to continue to Finisterre. I was certain that I needed to stop walking. The ANWB, the Dutch roadside assistance organisation, will get us home however we want: plane, train, or automobile. The man on the phone today said “It’s not our job to tell you how to get home, but think it through with you.” Their service is incredible.
My original plan was for us both to return to Leon, collect the 600, and mosey home through France. But we could just as easily fly. Either way, the ANWB foots the bill. I think we’ve settled on driving through France, but I’ll check again in the morning.
For now, I’m going to rest this weary soul.
G’night!