Camino Frances Day 17: Completion, Reflection, and Honoring Love | Day 268 of my 2023 Journal

Camino Frances. Day seventeen.

This is so emotional.

So much so I can not do it. Not for a short thing for social media. We completed. We completed the Camino, and I can not begin to explain how much happened, how important it was, how I mourn the change coming, and how I, at the same time, LOVE the process.

It is so complex.

Instead, I will babble on about the day and how it was, what we did. If I can.

I had a lovely morning office time in the sunrise, as we had decided to leave just in flow - I took out a blanket and my computer and sat on a wall to finish my writing while enjoying my coffee. The final day! Wuau.

The group arrived, my family got ready, and off we went for the final stretch: only ten kilometers, not much.

Some of this last part is truly beautiful. Some trees are covered in moss, some viewpoints and some stretches of planted systematic but silent forest are so beautiful it is hard to grasp. Some are basic, and others are weird. We made a lot of stops and felt we had enough time. Which we also had.

Arriving is chaotic, with too many people, even a tourist train. I think it is - at least for us - too overwhelming to take in the fact we did it in the chaos of the cathedral of Santiago. Cheryl and I went to have the certificates made, and most of us visited the relics in the Cathedral after that. Felt like a sheep, walking in line, but I also felt like the right thing to do.

The most important to me was to light a candle. A candle for love.

Not that love needs a candle.

It is THE candle.

So lighting a candle for love in the cathedral of Santiago after walking the Camino again was more a way for me to honor the fact love is what it is all about, and that I am part of it and it will always shine, no matter what.

The rest is history.

Really.

It is.

With love

Cecilie Conrad

Thank you for reading
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