It's been really meaningful to hear about your travels with @cake-emu.
The days of 14mins swarla drama is over and lately it's been some (1-4mins) Lisa doing murder investigation. So experiencing the passing of time through the plot of your hike together was nice and tiding over my Corrie drought.
I remember you both posting (as leaders and icons) last year on here about Swarla and I am so grateful to partake in you two meeting a couple weeks ago and completing this massive trail. No one I know IRL watches or cares about swarla so it's sweet that you two are in person together.
I wrote out a response to this yesterday aaaaand then… Tumblr ate it. (We’re still in questionable wifi/data zones for a few more days.)
This is a really lovely message! I’ve shared it with @cake_emu and while we both agree we are not icons or leaders, we’re very touched that our adventure has been of any interest to you. Or helped you through drought!
It’s funny to say it, since Corrie and Swarla is what spawned our friendship, but it’s probably the thing we’ve spoken about the least in all this time together. Walking the Camino has been such a fully immersive experience - physically and mentally - and the day to day has been our present needs, how far we’re going to walk, and where we’re going to sleep each night.
I am very, very grateful that it was Soph who joined us (Peter and I) on this trip, as she’s just as much the sane, knowledgeable human in person that she presents online. She kept us centered on the (many, many) days where my brain was shutting down. Plus, she’s funny as fuck and we’ve laughed our way through 260km+ of walking. What a gift that is!!! I will cherish these memories and jokes we’ve shared for the rest of my life. This is one of those trips that can’t really be explained to others, so to have done it with two other humans I adore is so special and will make the grief of going back to reality that much easier.
I can’t stress enough, though, how wonderful it is to not only have fandom friends but to then meet them in person and go on adventures together. I’ve met several from the tumblr-sphere through my travels and it’s amazing to see a person’s face for the first time and experience that feeling of “I already know you”. No ice-breaking, no small talk needed, just a jump in from your most recent online message. It’s pretty fun to be able to look at each other and simply understand a fandom joke in the glance, or make a comment about a character that no one else would understand. Sophie and I have definitely done that a few times in the last two weeks! (Or the one time in the woods when she got really introspective for a few minutes and then turned to me and said, “I just deeped: Carla Connor is queer.”)
Thank you again for being so kind and following along on our journey! We’ll have much more to share as we each return home, I’m sure.
