26/09/2025 - Today, I’m a bored, scrawny, fed-up rat.

Today wasn’t as high in terms of joy and fulfillment as yesterday. Being so in tune with my own self and therefore my cycle makes me notice every new change from one day to the next. Today is the third day after ovulation, which means I’m no longer fertile, knowing that the egg only lives about two days. As I’ve observed over the years, this is always a small window where I experience this sort of low-mode, lazy, blasé kind of energy. As if my body were disappointed I didn’t procreate and get impregnated lol. No, but seriously, wtf.

I woke up at 7:20am, which is late on the Camino, got dressed, packed my bag, and headed downstairs for coffee. I lingered as long as possible, dreading the 21km ahead, but eventually had to start walking. The sun was already up, and a few pilgrims were arriving from the towns before. I tried to gather energy, to move, to feel something again, listened to music, swung my arms, danced a little because it usually helps lift my spirit. But nothing really worked today. I was just done, in general.

It’s almost like I already got all the big revelations I thought I was seeking, and now I just wanted this journey to be done and over with. It still feels too long to go. Which I know is contradictory to everything I wrote yesterday. But welcome to my fucking world. Every day is a new emotional landscape and I just have to accept it. Today, I’m a bored, scrawny, fed-up rat.

I stopped a few times on the way, ate some bread with butter and jam, which always strangely triggers me. Maybe because I’ve associated it with something that has no real nutrients, and therefore feels like “lost” calories. White bread, butter, and sugar in jam form. But fuck thinking like that. Fuck diet culture for making me instinctively process things this way. So I ate big fucking bites of my bread, sitting at the bar, listening to the men coming and going, their loud voices filling the air with the smell of coffee, burnt toast, and wood.

Calypso called and told me about her life, her successes and her problems. I praised her, helped her, but even that didn’t manage to lift me up. I was still meh inside. Which, by this point, I completely accepted. I didn’t try to fix it, I just surrendered. Because I can’t be happy every day. All I can do is be true. Maybe that’s what people complain about with French people, we don’t fake joy. I never felt I had to appear happy, or anything else than what I genuinely feel in the moment.

Even now, I don’t know what to say on these pages. It feels a bit like a waste of time, which it isn’t, but still. I don’t feel like talking. I just want to stay in bed, in my sleeping bag, eat some grapes, watch a show, and call it a night.

But one great thing happened today. My father sent me links to our family albums, and I watched all the pictures from my childhood. It was amazing. I loved that I could still recognize myself in all of them. I am still her, all her versions.

And maybe I’m starting to get a grasp on what I desire now, to have fun again with my identity. I miss dressing up, acting, showing off, laughing at myself, loving to be a character. Yes, I’m dissolving everything, going back to my most natural self, and that’s beautiful, this revealing process. But it also makes me realize that playing with identity has always been part of me. Looking at those pictures made it even clearer, the crazy tights, the strange hair choices, the joy of it. My mum was always down for it apparently.

I miss that part of my daily life. Maybe I used to depend on it to feel whole or worthy of being seen, which I’m stripping down from now through this journey, but I’m still incredibly grateful for it. I’ll never stop being just a girl again, loving to embrace all the possibilities I have to play with my appearance, my environment, and my friends.

The albergue tonight is in a monastery. There was a dinner with other pilgrims, an introduction to the monks, and all that, but I simply cannot gather the fuck to give right now. So I’m doing the hermit, staying in my room.

Now I’ve written enough, I guess. Tried my best to englobe my feelings for the day. And I’m happy it’s done. Au revoir et à demain.

With love, Loune.