Page 3 of Every Step She Takes
Vi slams her chopsticks down onto the quartz countertop, because she’s decided to eat some suspicious leftover grocery store sushi.
“Give it to us straight,” she demands, and it’s an interesting choice of words, given the circumstances.
“Why didn’t it work with that sexy man? Did you talk about upholstery too much? ”
“I talked about upholstery the right amount. It’s just—”
I wasn’t attracted to him .
I don’t think I’ve ever been attracted to a man.
I’m…
I’m what ? I don’t have the slightest idea how to finish that thought. How do you figure out your sexuality in your thirties? There’s no GSA for grown-ass adults.
In four days, I will be thirty-five, and more than anything, my birthday feels like a horrible reminder of how little I’ve changed since I was twenty-one.
“Grant and I want different things in life,” I lie. And lie and lie and lie .
“What do you want, sweetheart?” my mom coaxes.
And shit. I walked right into that one. “Oh, you know…”
They don’t know, and I don’t know, and I feel like the walls are closing in. I’m stuck between a Grant and a hard place, with no hope for escape.
“This isn’t over.” My sister hobbles on her crutches to the fridge and pulls out an energy drink. At 8 p.m. “I still have a few more days to find you the perfect man. I’ll just double down on my efforts and—”
“No!” The word escapes from the deepest part of my gut, the part that goes hollow at the thought of going on any more dates with any more men ever again . I just don’t know how to explain this to my sister or my mom.
I feel like I need to have the right answer, the specific label… that I need to be certain . I feel like if I don’t have the perfect words to explain whatever this is to my family, they won’t listen.
And I need time to find those words.
So, I pivot. Hard. “No, don’t do that, Vi. I-I wouldn’t want you to overexert yourself. With your toe, I mean.” Totally saved it. “What did the doctor say about the X-ray results?”
My little sister unleashes a dramatic sigh and welcomes the attention.
“Eight weeks! He said I’m going to be in this boot for eight weeks!
” She gestures to the foot she has propped up on one of my stools.
They’re midcentury modern barstools that I tracked down at an estate sale in Ravenna, and I just finished sanding and restaining them, but none of that matters to Vi.
“Can you believe that? Eight weeks over a toe ? Who even breaks their big toe while parasailing?”
“I would guess a lot of people.”
My mom twists a cloth napkin in her hands. “I wish you wouldn’t do such dangerous things, especially in foreign countries,” she laments, because Molly Wells is a collection of anxiety disorders in the shape of a woman held together by Wellbutrin and romance novel audiobooks.
Vi brushes off her concern. “The extreme adventures company seemed legit.”
“The one that was operated out of a rusted bus in Venezuela?”
“Yes.” Vi is oblivious to my sarcasm. “The doctor said I shouldn’t travel for two months . What am I supposed to do with myself for two whole months? Work in the store with you?”
“Your disgust is noted.”
Vi has always jumped on any excuse to be away from the store and the family responsibilities that come with it.
As a kid, that meant karate and Girl Scouts and an elite soccer team.
In high school, she went on summer volunteer trips to the Dominican Republic and did a semester in Tokyo her junior year.
The day she graduated, she got on a plane to backpack Europe for ten weeks and didn’t call home once.
It’s been that way ever since. She boomerangs home sometimes to catch up on sleep and laundry and her regularly scheduled judgments of my life choices.
Victoria Wells never overthinks. She just acts . Which is probably why she was able to casually come out as bisexual at nineteen between bites of my homemade cottage pie. Without angst. Without questioning. Without having a fucking existential crisis about it.
And that’s the other thing. Vi is bi. If I were queer, wouldn’t she sense it somehow? Wouldn’t she have tried to set me up with a woman at some point?
Vi exhales in horror. “I can’t be stuck here like you. I was supposed to leave for Portugal and Spain in four days! I worked so hard to make this trek happen and I’ve been looking forward to it for months , and now this !”
“You’re going to Portugal?” my mom asks nervously, as if Vi has announced a planned trip to an active war zone. “Why?”
“It’s the guided tour of the Camino de Santiago,” Vi snaps.
“It’s been in the works for over a year now, and the tour company is paying me generously to do the trip and post about it.
I pitched the story on the Camino to the Seattle Times , and they’re considering running it next month.
In print . Plus, I had a whole daily blog planned, with affiliate links and sponsors.
” She melodramatically presses the back of her hand to her forehead in anguish.
“So much planned social media content. Wasted .”
Vi often cries over sponsored content, but it’s clear this opportunity is important to her.
Her Instagram might be 80 percent bikini shots in front of various waterfalls, but that’s because she knows how to game the algorithm.
She’s always wanted to be a travel writer, and she’s smart enough to know that bikini selfies are how to get there.
Besides, she looks fantastic in a bikini—like Nicola Coughlan in Bridgerton meets every Sports Illustrated cover model ever—and she never misses an opportunity to remind the world of this fact. It’s all part of being a travel influencer and midsize fashion icon.
“I can’t just bail . Writing for the Times would be a huge deal, and I don’t want to disappoint the tour company.
” Vi wails like an injured otter before reaching for her can of legalized methamphetamine.
Her long acrylic nails fumble with the tab for less than a second before she gives up and hands the can to me.
I open it for her, and I’m immediately assaulted by the smell of blueberries and lighter fluid.
The logo on the can says Bitch Fuel , with a slogan that unironically tells me to “fuel my inner boss bitch.”
But I don’t have an inner boss bitch. At best, I have an inner canary in a coal mine that I’ve been ignoring for far too long.
“I can’t believe I’m going to miss this trip!” Vi cries as I pass her the opened energy drink. “Can you imagine? All that sunshine and fresh air? Walking all day and drinking Portuguese wine every evening? Escaping it all for a while?”
And I can imagine it, actually.
“What if I do it for you?” I hear myself say.
Vi slurps her Bitch Fuel and belches subpar sushi. “Do what for me?”
“The trip. The Camino or whatever.” An idea is starting to take shape in my red-wine brain. “I could go and document everything for your Instagram and blog, and I’ll take notes so you can still write the article for the Seattle Times .”
My sister’s green eyes go wide. “You… you would do that for me?”
“I would do anything for you.”
My mom shakes her head. “No, no, you can’t do that, Sadie. You’ve never left the country before. You don’t even have a passport.”
“I do, actually.” Unused and buried at the bottom of my sock drawer.
“But you haven’t trained for this Camino-thingy,” my mom counters.
“It’s just walking,” Vi interjects.
“Sadie hates walking.”
“No I don’t!” Sure, most of my walking happens on the treadmill while watching old episodes of Love It or List It , but still. I do yoga twice a week with my mom, and my job is basically strength-training in the form of moving solid-wood furniture. How hard could it be to just walk ?
“But… but what about the store?” my mom cries in a final, anxious attempt to keep me here. “Who will take care of the store?”
Something stubborn takes shape in my chest, maybe because I’m tired of being the safety net. “You and Vi,” I answer plainly. “You can both handle it while I’m gone. It’s only for…”
I don’t even know how long this trip is, and that’s probably a sign I should abandon this impulsiveness.
“Two weeks,” Vi fills in.
“Two weeks,” I repeat. “Don’t you think you can handle everything for two weeks, Mom?”
I can see a thousand anxious thoughts blooming behind my mother’s eyes, but she doesn’t voice any of them.
“Are you serious about this?” Vi asks with so much hope in her voice.
“Dead serious,” I say with growing conviction. Because maybe this is what I need. Maybe I’ll be like Cheryl Strayed, and this will be my Wild . I’ll have two weeks away from the store, and my family, and the pressure to date men so I can finally figure myself out.
Or I’ll be like Diane Lane in Under the Tuscan Sun , and I’ll buy a crumbling villa and never return to the real world.
“I’m doing it,” I say one more time, to convince myself.
Even with the broken big toe, Vi manages to catapult herself off the stool and smother me in a hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you !”
“Who knows?” my mom adds, because she can’t fucking help herself. “Maybe you’ll meet a hunky Spanish man and finally fall in love!”
I down the rest of my pinot. “Yeah. Maybe.”
C’est La Vi with Me
HOME???ABOUT ME???DESTINATIONS???BLOG POSTS
Find Yourself on the Camino de Santiago
Vi Wells
April 16, 2025 116 comments
As always, Nomads, this post contains affiliate links, and I receive a small commission if you purchase anything from these links. I only promote products that have helped me embrace my life of adventure!
If you haven’t already heard of the Camino de Santiago, then listen up, Nomads, and prepare to dust off your Keens . You’re about to become as obsessed as I am with this travel trend!
Historically, the Camino de Santiago (also known as The Way of St. James, or just “The Way”) was a series of routes throughout Europe all ending at the glorious Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain, the location of St. James’s final resting place.
Once traveled by medieval Catholic pilgrims, the Camino is now a popular long-distance trek for travel lovers of all ages, cultures, abilities, and backgrounds.
Last year, nearly 500,000 pilgrims arrived in Santiago from all over the world, and this year, I can’t wait to grab my Osprey backpack and join those ranks.
While the Camino was originally viewed as an act of sacrificial piety, the modern Camino is the perfect place to escape the demands of everyday life.
Pilgrims attest there’s something meditative about walking for weeks through beautiful countryside, quaint villages, and the staggering coastlines of Portugal and Spain.
Evenings are reserved for resting your feet over tapas and cerveza while making friends with fellow trekkers who might just become your “Camino Family.” Unlike other long-distance hikes, such as the Pacific Coast Trail, you won’t have to rough it on the Camino.
The routes travel through towns where espresso and wine are always available, and pilgrims rest their heads on pillows each night at various hotels, hostels, and albergues (hostels specifically for pilgrims).
Even if you don’t complete the trek for religious purposes, there is something undeniably spiritual about The Way.
At least, that’s what draws Brazilian-born Inez Oliveira to the Camino year after year.
Oliveira completed her first Camino—the most popular route, the Camino Frances—at age twenty-two, and fell in love with the transformative nature of the trail.
Almost a decade ago, her experience inspired her to launch Beatrix Tours, a company that’s grown to include organized trekking tours in over 15 countries.
But CEO Oliveira still serves as a guide for small groups of pilgrims along six different Camino paths.
She’s found the Camino often attracts travelers who are spiritually lost in some way, and her tours are unique in that she provides guided prompts for self-reflection along the way, making the Camino both a literal journey and an emotional one.
“Many come to the Camino at a crossroads in their lives and they do this walk to find answers, and often a way back to themselves,” Oliveira explained to me in a phone interview. “I am blessed to be their guide on the path of self-understanding.”
I will be joining her two-week trek on the coastal route of the Portuguese Camino from Porto to Santiago in May, and I can’t wait to get away from it all and find myself on the Camino. I was lucky enough to interview Oliveira about her approach. For our full Q&A, click on the link.