Day 18 – Am I capable of trusting? Date 5.2.2025

I am the youngest child of 3 children and the second daughter.  My oldest sibling is my sister, then my brother and then me.  I don’t know if all “babies” don’t think they were babied but I don’t think I was ever babied as I grew up.  My memories include being told to “hurry up”, “You walk too slow”, etc.  I remember being excluded from a family trip to Milwaukee for a Bucks game because there were only 4 tickets.  I get it, I’m sure I was too young or wouldn’t be able to sit through the entire game but the feeling about that experience was I was excluded.  I come from a family of many aunts, uncles, and tons of cousins.  Historically I think we hung out more frequently with my mom’s side of the family than my dad’s side.  I used to think my infrequent relatives didn’t even know there was a third child or a second daughter.  I thought this because when my relatives would see me after it had been a while, they called me Kathy (my sister’s name).  In my little head I explained this by thinking they didn’t know there was a second daughter.  I was sure no one ever called my sister my name so my explanation made sense to me.  Now as an adult I think it’s more that the adults knew there was a second daughter. . . they just couldn’t believe the youngest child was as big as I was so I had to be the older sister.  I get that now.  Kids grow faster than we think they do.  Another feeling that resonated with me with these experiences is I wasn’t “right”.  I didn’t move fast enough, I wasn’t memorable and I was really just a burden.  I’m not sure I ever got a positive message that I am okay just the way I was.  I don’t mean to imply that any of this was intentional.  It’s just the way it was and the way I interpreted it.

Where is all this going and what the heck does it have to do with walking the Camino? Well this trek is a spiritual journey for me and I think one of the biggest lessons for me to address between me and my god is that of trust.  I’m questioning if I’ve ever been able to trust God to really take care of me.  I’ve been an independent, self-reliant person my entire life.  After my dad died when I was 17, I felt I was pretty much on my own.  My mom was dealing with her own issues after dad died suddenly and I just did my thing with being in school preparing for college.  No one really helped me with any of that and now that I was off to college soon, I managed my money on my own and got thru college.  

Being self-reliant is a good thing but like anything, too much can be a detriment. I think I’ve been too self-reliant.  I think it has affected my ability to trust people.  I think my early childhood mapping kind of created a belief that no one is really going to ever take care of me so I better do it myself.  It didn’t help matters when my marriage fell apart and pretty much all future romantic relationships too.  Advance to the Camino and I’ve been in a conversation with God about being a “beloved child of God”.  That I am worthy just because I am a child of God.  I don’t have to earn it.  But I have no mapping for being okay just because.  I didn’t feel that way as a kid and I think it left an imprint on me that I have to show why I’m worthy.  I have to “do” something to make me acceptable.  This is one of the things I’ve been grappling with on this trek.  I don’t have any answers but one of the lessons I’ve been learning is to stay in conversation with God about my struggle.  I do believe God is working with me so I experience situations where I trust that it will be okay.  One that comes to mind is on my first day’s hike where I couldn’t find the next sign so I didn’t know if I was to go left or right.  I struggled there for a while even waiting for someone to show up and maybe show me where to go.  No one came.  I was praying to God for what to do yet I didn’t get any thoughts.  Eventually I did go in one direction looking for a sign and finding one.  I was so grateful but WAY too tired to get down on my knees to say thanks.  I was that grateful but I knew I’d never get up if I did go to my knees.  I was scared, it was getting late and raining.  I felt alone and lost.  But I was provided for.  I will draw on that experience in the future when I feel the same.  I often feel alone and lost.  Maybe with more experiences I will turn to God rather than relying only on myself.  And after time, maybe I will start to turn to God sooner than I do now.  

Are you a trusting person?  If the answer is no, I don’t think it means you mistrust people.  I don’t think I tend to mistrust people; I think I just rely on myself more than others.

I’m still chewing on all of these thoughts.

Good night!