Lauren Hill's voice hums through my earbuds:

Outside my little square window, colors blur into streaming raindrops. Won't you come free my mind? The rain all but distracted me for about six seconds from him. 

"Love has funny timing," he'd told me. Sitting on the top of a hill, with his hand over his chest, and sense of relief bubbling up to the surface. 

"Are you in love??" I had teased, blushing. 

"Yeah, I love you." His eyes directly met mine, shifting my playful tone into one of deep sincerity.

He exhaled fully after the moment, with his hand on his heart, "it feels good to get that off my chest." As if it's been this mounting feeling, building, pressuring, and threatening to explode. I stared in awe at his tender relief in revealing, and accepting the fact that he loved me. That he really meant it.

My mind clicks through another memory, back to the year before the top of the hill, when we were surrendering to physical attraction, and the potential for love seemed like an arrogant assumption. For a moment, as I felt his chest rise and fall, I lifted my eyes to survey him and wondered if we would become more than what we were. He slept soundly, and I wondered for a second if one day I would love him. My curiosity quickly faded as reason set in. No, of course this wouldn't become love. We were just supposed to be having fun. 

Now I lay by a window, up in the Galician mountains where I know no one, nostalgic like a fool with the rain, and ask the thin air if he'll come to free my mind. Of course, he can't hear me. He's thousands of miles away, living a new chapter of his life. My thought travels from my mind, in a bubble, to the outside where it crashes into a rain drop, and they splatter in unison on the concrete. 

A phone vibrates behind me and jolts me from my daydream. 

7:23 a.m. Time to actually get up. My alarms, much like my current state of mind, are in a frenzy. I figured out a few years ago that I could out-smart myself in the morning by setting random times for the alarm to ring. By never truly knowing what time it actually was, I could never comfortably hit snooze. So now I'm a zombie, walking to the shared bathroom at 7:24 a.m., attempting to shapeshift my misery into the motivation to walk 15 miles somewhere in the Spanish countryside. 

Most of the people in my albergue have already left for the day. Thin white sheets stream over bunkbeds, and what was filled with backpacks and hiking shoes last night, now displays an empty hardwood floor. I look at my reflection, with toothpaste half dripping from my lips, and my hair wrapped up in a clip. A mix of disappointment and acceptance swirl as my reflection mirrors a heartbroken and sleepy 28-year-old, walking 100 miles in an attempt to find peace of mind.  

"Marissa? Are you in there?" A woman with a thick Spanish accent calls my name. 

"Yes, sorry! I'll be out in the next two minutes," I reply. It was now 7:27 a.m. and I had until the half hour mark to leave the room before they came in and cleaned for the next wave of pilgrims arriving later. I hastily change my clothes, tie my shoelaces, and grab my backpack for day two of the Camino of Santiago. 

Outside, the rain, which has converted into a thin mist in a quaint, one-street town, greets me with a sense of calm. I step outside and I exhale and watch my breath take up the space in front of me, as the frigid air takes up the space around me. I cross the street and a jingle of bells ring in my ears as I open the door to the only cafe in town.

"Buenos días señora," a lady with kind eyes welcomes me.

"Buenos días. ¿Me das un café y tostada con jamón?" I usually lack an appetite for breakfast, but coffee accompanied by toast seems like the appropriate fuel for my day. My eyes wander to the TV in the corner with the morning news, and my mind drifts to the last thing he'd told me. 

We had been distant for a few weeks. I attributed it to our busy work schedules, he attributed it to growing pains. Except instead of growing closer together, his growing pains left me alone in our apartment, spiraling over every conversation and interaction, in a desperate and pathetic attempt to find the point where it all went wrong. 

"Things change. I don't feel like forever is in the cards for us anymore. I'm so sorry." He had my left hand wedged between his palms as he shared feelings that had cemented for some time already, but that he hadn't felt brave enough to express until then. 

If you love someone, let them go. Right? I have some pointed words for the person who whispered that to him. 

"Cuidado, está caliente," the lady with kind eyes warns me, and her soft voice recruits me back to reality; back to my 100 mile adventure. 

My aunt was the brains behind this operation, encouraging me that a week in the mountains, with the single purpose of walking from point A to point B might help re-wire the circular rotation of memories with him that I cling to. 

Has it worked? It's been 24 hours. I shake off the image of his quiet tears as he tells me that he's leaving, and I redirect my attention to the coins in my purse. I drop off four euros and hear the familiar jingle of bells as I push my way out of the cafe and onto the path that's carried pilgrims for 1200 years. 

I take a step towards the stone pillar at the end of the road, and ready myself for the yellow arrows that direct the way. As I approach the stone, a metal bar in the center indicates that there still remain 81.5 miles until the steps of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. In just one day, I've become quite emotionally attached to these mini obelisk-shaped pillars. Their bold yellow arrow emblazoned on the front pointing to the right direction has become something to seek. With no purpose except to get to my destination for the day, the feeling of letting go of everything else is set in motion. 

Deep and poignant self-reflection begs to enter my mind, but I'm stuck sticking to the surface of my thoughts. Green, prosperous leaves sway in front of me, on tall embroidered trunks, as birds chirp their morning announcements. The mist continues to dawn on the surface of green fields, and there's open space around me in all directions; more space than there has been in my whole life. I'm alone, besides the occasional pilgrim posing as a blurry dot, setting the pace ahead of me. I close my eyes and inhale. My feet dig into the gravel a bit more, and I exhale. I open my eyes and revel in my reality that I have nowhere to be except in my head and on this luscious trail. 

With each step I feel the weight of my backpack on my shoulders, the weight of my body on my ankles, and the weight of my emotion in my stinging eyes. What does forever feel like? What did he know about forever that I didn't?

I pass a yellow arrow briskly painted on the side of a small stone house and turn the next corner. 

The voice of my first albergue host comes to mind, "Always follow the yellow arrow. The yellow arrow is love." I almost laughed when she said to follow love. That's exactly what I had done to wound up here. The world moves around in a circular fashion. The end of something seems to open the beginning of another. 

The birds chirp and it feels like they ask me if I'm chasing my tail. Is progress forward? To the left? To the right? The only progress I can make out in front of me is by following the yellow arrows, in and out of love again. 

I step one foot front in front of the other, on this embedded and sacred path, and with Lauren Hill humming through my earbuds, I walk in the pursuit of peace of mind.