Last night, going back home after work, I felt tremendously tired and feeling uneasy, the kind of feeling that would take me to the smoke club despite commitments not to do so. But my mother was waiting for me, and I started worrying about falling into the same old pattern the day she leaves, on New Year's eve. "I'll probably drop her off at the airport and head directly for a smoke", I thought with the resignation of a man who has no sovereignty over his own life.
When I got home my mother was cooking dinner, rice with vegetables because I've had explosive diarrhea since getting drunk at the office Christmas dinner. We sat down to watch the first episode of Pluribus), and I thought: there's my conundrum, mindless but content, or miserable but sovereign. After the show ended I remarked I was exhausted, my mom suggested me to go to bed despite being 9pm. I said no, we should do something, but after scrolling through some events that looked as appealing as plain tofu, I called it quits and went to bed.
In the morning, as we were having breakfast, my mother said: "I hope Margaret has taken away the phone from my grandson. When he has his phone he doesn't do his homework. When I'm there I take it away from him". I said: "it's not enough to take away his phone, he will just get bored and resent you mom. You have to find an interesting activity for him to do besides doing his homework". And by saying this I realized once again what I already know: taking away my substances is taking away my diversion.
So I told my mother: let's go walk the Camino de Santiago. She said "but you have to work". I said "Spain has delayed the invoicing legislation by one year, we were very busy two weeks ago, but not so much now. I can take time off". I had expected to continue my way from Granada to Córdoba, but when I saw the weather forecast it was pretty much the same in the south as in the north. My mother is a very social person and would enjoy the French way. I started looking to see if albergues would be open during the holidays, and yes they would. It all lined up before my eyes. It made so much sense to walk with my mother. I distinctly felt my heartbeat go faster... yes yes yes this is meant to be, if I was smoking I would gruel through my boredom, but not wanting to take the easy way out I will do the unexpected, when I reach the breaking point I must make the extravagant choice. A surge of hope filled my body and I felt energized after depletion, all the narrative threads connecting and the possibilities opening after a bleak outlook. I had been remorsefully thinking I would have to endure my mother's presence two weeks more before going back to my usual pattern, then I would enjoy it a week before having to endure that pattern too, this time indefinitely. Always wanting to be where I'm not, always wanting to do what I'm not doing, always desiring what I do not have. When will it all end?
Will it end with a walk? No. But I felt something special today, a kind of alignment I hadn't experienced in a long time.