Halfway Point

Last month Kari and I joined The 100 Day Project and invited all of you to get lost with us.

Today marks day 50 or the halfway point of that project.  If you check out @karimgale or @tonykriz on Instagram, you can see the first half of our creative tome, with much more to come.

If you look up #halfwaypoint on Instagram, you will find over 25,000 posts, celebrating 4.5 months of pregnancy, the middle point of an engagement or the significant marker on the road to getting in shape.

#Halfwaypoint is an interesting psychological sensation.

Here at Pilgrim Lost, we like to say we are “inspired by the Camino de Santiago, but focused on life in the everyday.”  

I will never forget the halfway point when I walked across Spain.  It is marked by an ancient gate like something out of Greek mythology.  Our co-pilgrims of generations past seemed to know that this moment needed memorializing.  

the gateway Centro Geográfico del Camino

When Lewis and Clark crossed the North American continent, their “halfway point” was a mountain pass through the Rockies.  Up to that point they were literally paddling against the current and from that point to the Pacific, the current pulled them along.

My experience of the Camino felt like that.  The first weeks, miles seemed to slog by, as if I was hiking against the current, but from that gateway on, I felt like a kid in a wagon, flying downhill.

Halfway Points have deep meaning… it is a watershed; it is a deepening.  When I look up “Halfway Point” in the thesaurus, I found surprising synonyms: heart, midst, core, deep, focus, marrow.  I didn’t expect such words.

But it is true.  Like Lewis and Clark, suddenly the current carries one along.

I have been trying to figure out why something inside me wanted to make this my blog topic today.  At first it was just the serendipity that today is day 50… the halfway point.  But now I know what my inner-self was searching for.  You see, I’m not enjoying #the100dayproject.  Truth be told.  Sure, I like much of what I am producing (see below), but I often wish I hadn’t said “yes.”

Having written this and remembering the power of the “second half,” has caused me to reflect…  Remembering how the last two years of college flew by.  Remembering how the second half of each of my books practically wrote themselves as I was pulled along.  Remembering the day I walked though that fateful gateway on the Camino.  And today, I sit here, awaiting how these next 50 days will play out.

And one last thought.  Much of this quarantine sucks.  However, it doesn’t all suck.  We have time.  We have pause.  This may be a time to put something in motion.  Pick a timeframe and a goal.  Make it doable.  10,000 steps a day for 30 days.  Lose 10 pounds in 20 days.  Read the books you’ve been putting off, one a week for 10 weeks.  

Do it, and feel the current pick you up as you cross the #halfwaypoint.