Page 55 of Every Step She Takes

When I pass through the final security doors at Arrivals, I’m ambushed by two redheads and a pair of crutches. I’m so jet-lagged, so supremely exhausted and utterly heartbroken, it takes me several seconds to realize the people hugging me are my mom and sister.

“You’re home!” my mom cries.

“Thank fucking Christ!” Vi screams. “I can’t handle one more day at the store!”

“You really did cut off all your hair,” my mom says, clutching the ends of the short strands. “Your beautiful, beautiful hair.”

“Let me see the tattoo!” Vi grabs my arm and pulls my wrist toward her. “Holy shit. Who the hell even are you?”

“I’m a lesbian,” I answer.

My mom’s hand stills in my hair. “Oh,” she says.

It’s not how I planned on telling them, not remotely the perfect way, but I can’t take the words back now that they’re lingering in the air at SeaTac. And I don’t want to take them back. I will never have the perfect words or the perfect way to be myself, so this is as good as anything.

“What about the Portuguese guy you fell in love with on the Camino?” Vi asks, then catches herself. “Wait. Replaying that conversation. Not a dude. Got it.”

“Not a dude,” I say.

“Huh.” My sister twirls her red hair around her finger. “But you’ve always dated men .”

“Yeah. Heteronormativity is a bitch.”

“Wait. Did that queer tour turn you gay?”

“Being gay turned me gay.”

“Huh,” Vi says again. “In retrospect, I probably should’ve seen this coming.”

“Probably.” I finally turn to my mom, bracing myself for her unpredictable emotions, preparing myself to have to care for her in this moment. “Are you… disappointed?”

“Disappointed? Honey, I am thrilled .” My mom tackles me in another hug, squeezes me so tight I can barely breathe.

“I’m so, so happy for you to start living your truth!

” Her words aren’t anxious, aren’t sad. She’s not asking me to take on any emotional labor.

She’s just… hugging me. I really need that.

I don’t mind holding up my mom sometimes, but right now, it’s nice to have someone else do the heavy lifting.

“I know so many women I can set you up with!” Vi squeals.

I slide my arms out of my backpack and let the heavy bag fall onto the airport carpet with a clunk, making the weight off my shoulders both physical and emotional.

I didn’t realize how fucking scared I still was to tell them until right now.

I’ve always known that my family wouldn’t care if I was gay, and coming out to them was still the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even harder than walking two hundred miles. Even harder than saying goodbye to Mal.

I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for Ro or Rebecca, who didn’t know what kind of reaction awaited them. How hard it must have been for eighteen-year-old Mal when she showed her dad her true heart and he scorned her for it.

“Oh, honey.” My mom’s hand is in my hair again. “You’re crying.”

I drop my head onto her shoulder.

“I think I’m ready to go home now.”

Mal

Some people cut their hair after a bad breakup. I book international flights.

At least, that’s what I’ve always done. Open the Kayak app on my phone. Choose some new, exciting destination. Hop on a plane, take off, run away. Meet a beautiful woman and follow her to Hong Kong or Laos or Wilmington, Indiana, to start the cycle all over again.

Right now, Alaska Airlines is running a special on flights to Costa Rica, and I have just enough Delta miles to get to Brisbane.

But I don’t want to go to Brisbane. For the first time in my life, I don’t want to get on an airplane at all.

Sadie is gone, and even scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef isn’t going to make me feel better about it.

But I can’t sit still, either, can’t stop walking, stop moving.

I can’t sit in the silence for the next six days until my father’s funeral back in Porto.

So, when Stefano tells me his plan to extend his Camino a few more days and walk out to Finisterre on the far western coast of Spain, I decide to join him.

It’s 120 kilometers to Finisterre via the seaside village of Muxía, and we do it in three days. We leave Santiago in the late afternoon, after a round of beers convinces me that this is a good idea, and we walk the twenty-two kilometers to Negreira in four and a half hours.

The next day, we push ourselves as far as we can—all the way to Muxía. Sixty kilometers over the course of fourteen hours, the most I’ve ever walked in a single day, and it’s not just my feet that are killing me. It’s every fucking part of my body and soul.

I’m punishing myself: for falling in love with Sadie, even when everyone told me not to; for falling into my same old patterns; for hurting myself, and Sadie, in the process.

But at least through all the screaming pain in my body, there’s no room for silence.

So, we walk. And walk and walk and walk.

We walk until we reach Cape Finisterre, the rocky cliffsides overlooking the Atlantic, what medieval pilgrims believed was the end of the world. We walk until we can literally walk no farther.

I collapse onto a rock in a pitiful heap, half convinced they’ll have to medevac me back to Santiago. Stefano, meanwhile, finds a smooth surface on which to begin his vinyasa.

“What. The. Fuck. Is wrong. With you?” It takes me nearly a minute to get out the question since I have to pause between every word to chug more water.

“What do you mean?” he asks from fucking Scorpion pose.

“This. Is not. Normal,” I gasp. “What are you running from, dude?”

“I do not run from anything.”

Stefano whips his body impossibly into a handstand.

“Then why are you incapable of sitting still? Why are you always moving?”

“I like to move,” he says while upside down. “I’ve always liked to move, ever since I was little.”

I am languishing on my rock in a pool of my own sweat, and this man continues to contort his body in unholy ways. “I’m sorry, but no one does that simply because they enjoy physical movement. You’ve got to be outrunning some demons, my dude.”

Stefano flips himself like a pancake and ends up sitting cross-legged, facing me. “No demons,” he says. “I do not run from anything. I run toward it.”

I can barely lift my head, but I force myself to make eye contact with this ridiculous human when I ask him. “Run toward what ?”

“Toward everything I want.”

In the end, I don’t need a medical helicopter to get me back to Santiago. The bus works just fine. Stefano and I say goodbye at the station before he gets on a train that will eventually take him all the way back to Naples, and I get on a bus that will take me all the way to my father’s funeral.

C’est La Vi with Me

HOME???ABOUT ME???DESTINATIONS???BLOG POSTS

Coming Out (and Coming of Age) on the Camino

Sadie Wells

May 30, 2025 213 comments

On the first day of my trek with Beatrix Tours, tour guide and owner Inez Oliveira asked us to share what brought us to the Camino.

Because whether we realized it or not, no one does the Camino de Santiago just because they enjoy walking.

We were all running from something, or running toward something, or trying to find the time we needed to figure ourselves out.

I didn’t share that first day, but here is my truth: my sexual identity crisis is what called me to the Camino.

It never occurred to me that I could be anything but straight until I was thirty-four, though in hindsight, there were clues.

My childhood obsession with Amy Jo Johnson as the Pink Ranger.

My later obsession with Mischa Barton’s jean skirts on The O.C.

I had my fair share of intense female friendships, and the only boys I ever had crushes on were the ones my friends liked, because I liked bonding with them over it.

When one of my friends in college came out as gay, I remember thinking that meant I couldn’t be gay too, because if I was, I would’ve felt something when she told me.

Instead, I felt weirdly numbed by the news.

And when my sister told us she’s bi, and my mom took it in stride, I told myself I couldn’t be queer too.

Because if I was, I would’ve told someone already.

It was like I was waiting for the right sign, waiting for the universe to give me permission to question my sexuality.

And in the meantime, I kept dating men, because that was the only path I could imagine for myself.

Even when I started feeling this desperate need to talk about questioning my queerness, I didn’t have the language for it. And I thought I had to have the right words, the perfect label, for my identity to be valid.

So when my sister’s injury meant she couldn’t do the Camino tour, I jumped on the opportunity to escape my real-life responsibilities, to buy myself the time I needed to find the perfect words.

After two weeks and two hundred miles with Oliveira and a group of incredible queer people, I learned two things: there are no perfect words; and my sexuality is a small part of who I am and what I needed to figure out about myself.

I thought the Camino was about exploring my sexuality, but that wasn’t the only thing I’d been ignoring about myself.

It wasn’t until I let myself question my queerness that I finally gave myself permission to question everything else.

That’s the truly special thing about Beatrix Tours, and Inez Oliveira as a person.

She creates a culture of trust, vulnerability, and growth.

She fosters a safe, loving community where pilgrims can choose to reflect as much or as little as they need to.

And there’s a beautiful power in getting to do that alongside queer family.

So, without further ado, one final list.

Things I Discovered About Myself on the Camino:

That I’m probably a lesbian.

But it’s okay if I don’t have all the answers.

And it’s okay if the answers change over time.

That I need to stop drinking red wine.

That I don’t like seafood (but I especially hate octopus).

That I cannot make rational decisions on limited sleep.

That I am the kind of person who gets a tattoo.

That I need to stop apologizing for taking up space.

That it’s okay to make mistakes.

That sometimes, the best learning comes from those mistakes.

That I’m on a different timeline than other people.

And that’s okay.

That I’m a giddy fool when I have a crush.

That I’m even worse when I fall in love.

That I want love, even if it doesn’t always have a happy ending.

That I want a partner, and a family someday, and that it’s okay to admit those things, even if they don’t work out the way I want.

What it feels like when I have a broken heart.

What it feels like when I’m attracted to someone, when I want someone.

How to talk about what I want.

That there’s something endlessly satisfying about the crunch of a dill pickle.

That I hate my job.

But that I love turning something forgotten into something beautiful.

That I do miss my family.

But that I don’t miss twisting myself into something I’m not, to please my family.

That I’m not too late.

That I’m not too inexperienced.

That I am, in fact, exactly where I’m meant to be.

That life would be very boring if we already knew everything about ourselves.

Comments

The Rainbow Rocket

THANK YOU for letting us be part of this journey! I’m SOBBING. I didn’t come out until I was 32, and this whole thing made me feel so seen!!!!

Cory O’Connor

SERIOUSLY SO SEEN!!! Mischa Barton made me gay too!!!!!

Rebecca.Hartley.1956

You are so brave, Peaches. I feel honored to have witnessed your journey

Jackie Jormp-Jomp

As a fellow late-bloomer, I’m so grateful for this!!

Clarissa Youn

I can’t tell you how much this whole post means to me. Signing up for a Beatrix Camino tour right now!!!

Mal as in Bad

But what if I’m realizing I didn’t learn anything about myself in two weeks and two hundred miles?

C’est La Vi

It’s not too late