This is the next installment of the Wisdom of the Sisterhood adventures. Find previous issues here->
Welcome to the second and final installment of the âLife and Adventures of Debby Kevin.â I know youâll enjoy this true story as much as I did.
-Ophelia đ
The Camino
A True Story from Debby Kevin
I didnât realize my life had stopped fitting me until the seams finally gave way.
For years, I wore every role like armorâmother, partner, teacher, leader, business ownerâlayer upon layer until I couldnât tell where the costumes ended and I began. Striving became my language. Hustling became my heartbeat. And one day, without warning, even the smallest parts of me felt threadbare.
It took a journey halfway around the world for me to finally be able to hear the voice that was inside of me all along, yelling itself hoarse. I thought I was looking for an escape. The Camino taught me I was looking for a place to breathe, I was moving in order to find stillness, I was fighting through the noise to hear a whisper.
I finally took my first long trek in 2017. Over the years, Iâd walked miles across France and Spain, shedding stories I never chose but carried anyway. But this final journeyâfrom Santiago to MuxĂaâfelt different from the very first step.
The Camino has a way of stripping life down to its barest truths: your breath, your footsteps, the pain in your legs, the kindness of strangers, and the silence of your own mind.
There were mornings when I woke to a cathedral bathed in the stunning glow of the rising sun and felt something inside soften. There were afternoons of eucalyptus forests and sleepy villages, where the world seemed to whisper that nothing was as urgent as Iâd made it. And then there were days I trudged along hot pavement with swollen feet, sweating through my resolve, wondering why on earth Iâd chosen this path again.
It was day six of my final Camino trek, I was slowly climbing the first sun-baked incline, the ocean stretching behind me like a promise I couldnât cash in yet.
The road was hot. Wide open and busy, with the kind of traffic that makes you question every life choice, including the one that brought you to this godforsaken, gorgeous corner of the world.
No shade. Just miles of hot pavement, my own shadow for company, and the occasional blaring horn from drivers who apparently thought the Camino was a racetrack.
I was sweating in places I didnât know could produce sweat. My knees. My actual knees. Who knew knees could glisten like that? By hour three, the sun peeled back any illusions of comfort, and my feetâbless themâwere bloated into unrecognizable bags of stubbornness and regret.
Still, the beauty was undeniable. Rolling hills, wildflowers clinging to dry earth, olive-skinned trees waving gently in the breeze. That breeze. God, the way it moved through the eucalyptus leaves, the rustle soft and meditativeâuntil the next truck roared past and shattered the moment like glass.
Somewhere around mile four, I thought Iâd reward myself with a break. I dropped my pack, sat down, and exhaled with something like joy.
That joy lasted exactly 4.7 seconds.
I had sat on an anthill. Not beside. Not near. Directly on.
The moment was pure chaos. They were everywhereâdown my shorts, up my shirt, biting with the coordinated fury of an army scorned. I leapt up, flailing and swatting at my clothes, hopping around like someone whoâd just discovered interpretive dance. I yanked at my waistband and cursing in languages I donât speak. It would have been hilarious if I wasnât half-convinced Iâd be consumed alive.
I finally shook them offâmostlyâand limped back onto the path, itchy, bitten, and full of a fresh kind of rage.
But The Camino was having none of it. Out of nowhere: kittens. Literal kittens, chasing each other in the dust outside a crumbling farmhouse. And dogsâso many dogs, lounging in the sun, padding alongside fences, wagging their tails like I was someone worth noticing.
It was absurd, this mix of pain and beauty. The kind of contrast that makes you question whether youâre alive or dreaming, or hallucinating from heatstroke.
By the end of the day, my body felt as though itâd been through a car wash set to âscalding sandpaper.â I was a little broken. A little bitten. AndâŚcontent.
But the true turning point wasnât dramatic.
It happened the morning my feet refused my shoes. Hokas, Birkenstocksânothing fit. My legs throbbed, my body begged, and for the first time I didnât force myself forward. I listened. I rested. I finally understood the quiet power in allowing, instead of pushing, of listening to that quiet inner voice.
And when three other women chose rest too, I realized how deeply ingrained these ideas of self-sacrifice, enduring, and submitting are in the female psyche. I realized that all of us were so busy listening to the voices of outside expectations that weâd all stopped listening to ourselves.
Permission, it turns out, is a contagion more healing than determination.
Reaching MuxĂa didnât feel like arriving at the âend of the earth.â It felt like walking back into myself. The waves crashed against the ancient rocks with a kind of honest ferocity, as if they knew exactly what I had been holding. I carried a small stone from Santiagoâsymbolizing every year Iâd put my own needs lastâand when I threw it into the Atlantic, I didnât feel triumphant. I felt free. It was a homecoming, not a victory lap.
The woman who first stepped onto the Camino in 2017 isnât the woman who stood beside the ocean in 2025.
Iâve grown softer in the places that once hardened. Clearer in the places that once scattered. Iâve learned to listen inward even when itâs inconvenient, even when it shifts the shape of my life. Iâve stopped apologizing for needing rest, silence, and truth.
And if thereâs anything I want another woman to know, itâs this:
Your return to yourself wonât announce itself with a bang. It will come in a quiet momentâa refusal to push, a choice to listen, a truth you finally stop outrunning. Thatâs when the path home opens. Not loudly. Not dramatically. But unmistakably.
Meet Debby Kevin
Highlander Press
Deborah helps women authors turn their powerful stories into professionally published booksâwithout overwhelm, confusion, or compromise. Through guided publishing cohorts, interactive education, and full-service support, she leads writers from messy idea to polished manuscript to meaningful, impactful book launch.
Wisdom in the Deck
Card 2: Coming home to yourself isnât some big dramatic moment. Itâs just the quiet decision to stop second-guessing what you already know.
Theme: This card teaches that clarity is not something to chase, earn, or forceâit is something to remember. It invites the reader to step out of relentless striving and return to the quiet intelligence of instinct and discernment. The wisdom here honors rest, listening, and subtle inner knowing as legitimate forms of power. It reminds us that transformation does not always arrive with spectacle; sometimes it arrives when we finally stop running from ourselves.
