Pilgrim Letter #3: Momentum, mistakes, and making it up as you go along.
Alsen, Sweden. Day: 14. Kilometer: 265.
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On the seventh day of my pilgrimage (so biblical!) it rained. Hard. All damn day.
At moments, the deluge would dwindle to a sprinkle. Then I’d whip out my phone and voice note an insight. (This is how I’m keeping track of endless ideas bubbling up in my mind like a Scandinavian spring.)
“Right whenever I think, ‘oh shit, I don’t know where to go,’ these little St Olav placards show up,” I giggled into my voice memo app.
I had just spied another of these beloved signs. They are stuck to light poles, suspended from tree branches, crowning sticks sunk deep in the ground. When my eye lands on one, the sensation of relief is physical. An openness spreads through my chest to my arms, my shoulders relax and lower so my pack slides down to a more comfortable spot on my back. This was particularly noticeable during the second coming of Noah’s Ark, when it was raining hard enough that I did not want to have to double check my progress on my phone or paper map.
I kept voice memo-ing: “But that’s not how life works. Right? When you don’t know where you are going, there is no sign, arrow, lighted LED floor path pointing you in the right direction. Then what do you do?”
And with that sassy little monologue, I jinxed myself.
Thirty minutes later I hadn’t seen another of my saving-grace signs. That was too long. I was on the wrong path. I huddled under a tree to check google maps. The forest path I was on wasn’t even showing up as a trail. Uh oh. I knew I needed to keep the nearby lake to my left. I could see I was heading in a similar direction to the actual path, which was somewhere between inches and kilometers of monochrome green space away. Decision time.
Backtrack or forge ahead?
I decided to just keep going, and look for a route to get me back on track. Fifteen minutes later, I found one. Crisis averted.
This snafu — and another the following day, when backtracking ended up being the right choice — got me thinking about our paths in life. How we chose them. How we know we are on the right one. Whether a ‘right one’ even exists.
Mike and I were solid path followers. Get MBAs. Meet Mr/Ms Right. Get married. Have kids. Constantly advance at work. Bury our scarcity mentalities so deep under achievements and promotions and bonuses that they never resurface.
The thing was, we were following society’s prescribed path. It wasn’t specific to us. But it felt tried and true. We both believed that if we followed the steps laid out, didn’t stray far from the recommended route, and pushed through the hard times, we’d live happily ever after. Cause and effect. Effort and reward.
But then Mike died… And I became terrifyingly aware that no path can guarantee the end we think we are supposed to have. Even in less dramatic circumstances, rarely does one make it through a career unscathed. Sitting here in 2024, layoffs are rife. So that society-mandated path is a ruse. You can follow all the ‘signs’ — climb the career ladder, save every penny, eat almost exclusively salmon & spinach (all of which Mike did) — and end up with nothing.
These days, I believe a lot less in society-approved paths. They betrayed me. That’s scary. But freeing.
It allowed me to start to wonder about my own path. The path that would bring me satisfaction and fulfillment today, instead of off in some distant future.
So how do we find our individual paths? How do we look inside ourselves for signs pointing the way? How do we notice when we’ve gone the wrong direction, and how do we get back on track? I’m still figuring it out.
I think the first step is acknowledging that the standard path is not risk-free.
And the second step is embracing movement. If I had become paralyzed by uncertainty — trying to decide if I should forge ahead or go backwards — I would have just sat in the rain, freezing, muscles stiffening.
So I keep moving. If I have to turn around and retrace my steps — on this pilgrimage, in my career, about something dumb I said to the kids — so be it. But with every step, I gain new information, see things from a different perspective, and get to know myself and the world a little better. Plus, I keep my momentum. We don’t have to know where we are going to not stop. We don’t need a promise of good things coming tomorrow to stay moving today. It doesn’t have to always be about the future. Staying out of paralysis is its own reward.
I could quote Newton’s famous first law — “objects in the motion stay in motion” — but after being soaking wet and out of sorts, I am more drawn to Dori’s mantra. “Just keep swimming.”
One step at a time,
P.S. Here are some of our favorite previous posts about facing uncertainty, missteps, and fear:
#31: Not all progress feels like progress. Sometimes it feels like limbo.
#33: It’s okay to be afraid. Allowing fear to live, but not to rule.
#62: A widow’s take on planning for the future. My word of the year.
#70: Taking the cycles of life less personally. Sometimes everything just sucks.
#75: We’re on a rollercoaster… blindfolded. When we stop pretending we know what will happen next.
After reading this week, making us think about our life, and health journey’s, I am glad to see u sitting in the kitchen with a piano nearby!!! Hope the weather stays dry! It sounds like even though u had rain, it was not down into the 40’s wet and cold!
Yikes! That’s a LOT of kilometres so far!!