Day Two - May 2nd-Letting Go, Moving Forward

May 2nd - Day 2

When I met Robin he was dating quite a few different women, after about a year of dating, he whittled down his choices to just me.  His motto was, you have to date more than one woman at a time so that you can see who is the best one for you.  I got to be that “one” and we were having a lot of fun together.  I had a dream of sailing around the world so I wasn't being too committal.  I had been telling everyone I met about my dream; my seed sowing paid off; someone needed crew to bring their sailboat from the east coast of Canada around through the Panama Canal and up to Vancouver, and I was asked to join the crew.  

I called Robin and told him I had some good news.  He was excited as he had some good news as well, we met to exchange details.   I was bursting ready to tell him my news and wanted to go first, he, even more excited, said let me go first.   I conceded.  

“I have a break between jobs and I want to take you to Australia to meet my mom.”    

“Wow, no way, well yah of course I want to do that!”  I said excitedly.

“What is your news?”  He asked.

“I got a job on a sailboat” and I told him all the details.  When I get back from Australia I can still do this, I thought to myself.  

We quickly obtained passports and airfares and were on our way to Australia to meet Robin’s mother and stepfather.  After a quick but wonderful visit we headed up to Surfers Paradise to visit my best friend Cindy and her husband Chris.  On our last evening in Australia we all headed to the beach for dinner.  We finished our sunset beach picnic and Robin pulled me away to go for a romantic walk in the moonlight.  I can still hear the surf as it lightly hit the shore accompanied by the squeak of our steps on the fine sand. The night skies were covered in stars that looked so different from our Canadian constellations.    Robin stopped and engraved a big heart in the sand and within the heart he wrote Robin loves Charlene.  Taking my hand he pulled me into the middle of the heart.  He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.  

Wow, I was in shock.   I said yes and Robin put a sharks tooth necklace around my neck to seal the deal.  I made Robin promise that we would travel around the world on a sailboat together one day.  He agreed as he picked me up and swung me around.  Robin then took some sand from the heart, the Robin, the loves, & the Charlene.  We went back to Cindy and Chris who were waiting for us on the beach and we never said a word, we kept our engagement as a secret just between the two of us.

I still have this sand in a bowl on my dresser. 

Roncesvalles to Espinal - 6.5 km

I was supposed to meet my friend Laura but there is no sign of her.  I woke at 7:30am and we have to be out of the monestary by 8:00am so it doesn't leave me much time to try and connect, so I leave a note for Laura in hopes she will find it.  I am so sore and weak I have no clue how I will make it through the day. The fog has lifted and the weather is nice but my head still feels like a fog.

I ask the volunteer at the monastery where I can obtain breakfast, he directs me to a coffee shop 3.5 km up the path to the next town.  So off I go, I walk and talk to people as they pass but the conversations go in one ear and out the other. I canʼt hear and I canʼt feel anything my body is doing. That really was the hardest hike I have ever done in my life yesterday.  Then to have to go for another walk today....crazy!

As I approach the cafe I run into Laura sitting outside with a group of women enjoying breakfast. I have my first cola cao, (hot chocolate) and tortilla, (a potato omelet).   Laura and I walk for another 3 km together and end up in a little town named Espinal. I am so exhausted all I want to do is to stop. My running shoes are still wet from yesterday.  I wrote a postcard home and this is what it says “As I walk the birds are singing, the church bells ring in the distance which are accompanied by the deeper tone of the cow bells in the fields. All I want to do is lay comatose anywhere till the end of time and listen. The walk did me in yesterday so I just walked 6.5 km today. I am in a lovely hostel in Espinal.” 

After a delightful dinner (wine, bread, cheese and chocolate), Laura I go through my pack to figure out what is not necessary for my journey ahead.   An entry in my journal, “One day in and I can see that I have baggage I need to get rid of. If I am going to make the journey ahead I have to let go of what is heavy and holding me back. I gave Laura a light pair of pants and I left my heavy rain coat that didnʼt do any good. Plus I am leaving Laura behind, she is taking this journey slower so I am on my own from here on in.

Letting Go, Moving Forward

The day Robin asked me to marry him and the day he died are two instances in my life where I thought my life was going in one direction and then in an instant that future changed.  The one that intertwined our lives was far better than the one where Robin left me, I wanted to grow old with this man. When he asked me to marry him, I could say yes or no; when Robin died I had no control. Now I have to make choices and decisions that do not include Robin, I didn’t want my future to change and every decision I make, I felt like I was choosing a life without Robin.  I wanted my life to stay on course and all our future plans to actually happen.  A life with Robin was now impossible and I had to create a new life without him.  It feels like every choice I make, as simple as a meal, leads me further away from Robin.

The days following Robinʼs death were a blur. I couldnʼt tell you who came to see me and who didnʼt, my life was a fog. Every part of me felt exhausted and nothing was in focus. Food was in abundance and I couldnʼt eat. I ate raw vegetables and pizza. I knew I had a long journey ahead of me and my thoughts where not focused beyond my breath. My huge loss was present within every breath I took.

It became instantly apparent who could help me through this journey and who couldnʼt. There are people in my life who gave me energy and there are people in my life who depleated my energy.  It took a lot of stamina to be around people so the only people that I could have around me were people that didnʼt need anything from me. I was raw, with nothing in me to give in the slightest. I had no strength, I was completely emotionally exhausted. Again if I could have just laid comatose till the end of time I think I would have. There was no guide book to pull me forward; I wish there had been. But I knew I just had to take each day as it came, with its pains and joys... but mostly pains.

I left people behind that couldn’t help me move forward to a healthy place.  That sounds so simple but it was excruciatingly hard!  Not just for me but for the people I left behind.  This was my life and my life was already changing so drastically.  To weed people out, no matter how dysfunctional the relationship, made me feel even more vulnerable.  Just because these relationships weren’t healthy didn’t mean they weren’t comfortable.  The people that I distanced myself from did not support my choice to alienate them from my life.  Looking back, they were quite mean to me, especially when I was going through such a hard time.

The same feeling to a lesser degree I feel regarding the articles in my back pack, that I am leaving behind.  These items are the only things I have that are mine.  My whole existence is me and these possessions in my backpack.  Leaving them behind is hard.  There is something inside of me that no matter how hard they make my journey, I want to keep carrying them.  

My ultimate goal is to be healthy and happy and to face life challenges head on.  Letting go and distancing myself from people I love in the process made my future even more undetermined.  But I did it, I left them behind and things felt a little bit lighter.

The man doing the handstand is Robin's dad.