Ten Years on the Pilgrim’s Path

Ten years ago, I was standing in a season of transition without fully realizing it. 

I had just begun my career as an elementary school teacher and found myself at an early crossroads: choosing between a contract in Kindergarten or Grade One. At the time, it felt like a small, practical decision. In reality, it shaped the relationships I built, the skills I sharpened, the realizations I had, and the confidence I developed in those formative years of teaching. 

I chose Grade 1. 

We never get to see how the other path unfolds. The unanswered “what if” can echo for years if we let it.

Yet it is precisely those decisions, ordinary and unceremonious, that quietly form us. 

Around that same time, I was planning a backpacking trip through South America. Flights were researched. Routes were mapped. The adventure felt set. 

Then, a few months before departure, I scrapped the entire plan. 

Instead, I chose to return to the Camino de Santiago for a second time. 

That decision marked the beginning.  

I selected a quieter, less-traveled route through France with fewer pilgrims, longer stretches of silence, and no built-in distractions. The solitude forced me inward.  

I learned how to sit with myself. I learned how to keep going when the day felt longer than expected. And I learned how to solve problems without reaching for immediate reassurance. 

The Camino asked me to slow down. To listen to my body. To move with intention. 

Somewhere along that path, between early morning starts and long afternoons on dusty trails, I made a private commitment to myself: That from this day forward I would live a life of pilgrimage. At the time, I did not fully understand what that meant. I only knew it felt true. 

Living a life of pilgrimage meant prioritizing alignment over approval. It meant perseverance when the outcome was unclear. It meant patience in seasons where growth was happening underground. It meant refusing to abandon myself when things felt uncertain. It meant accepting the cards I was dealt and knowing when to hold or to fold them. 

I did not know then that the path I was walking would eventually lead me away from classroom teaching. I only recognized that the questions of pilgrimage kept returning, gently but persistently: 

Am I happy?  

Is this what I want?  

What would it look like to choose differently? 

Eventually, I realized something simple and powerful: we always have a choice. 

So I pivoted. 

I carried forward the parts of teaching that I loved — guiding others, creating meaningful experiences, cultivating reflection — and poured them into something new. Something that feels deeply aligned with the promise I made to myself on that quiet stretch of trail. 

Ten years later, I am building pilgrimage experiences in my own backyard. 

The PlaidPath is the embodiment of that promise. It is slow by design. It values intention over urgency. It holds space for reflection, resilience, and purpose. It invites people to walk not for distance alone, but for discovery. 

It’s difficult to tie this past decade together with a nice bow. It was messy, chaotic, and kind of all over the place. There have been failures, missteps, heartbreak, financial uncertainty, more moves than I would have liked, and moments when walking away would have been easier. There were seasons when progress felt invisible. There were days when doubt spoke louder than conviction. 

And that was only this past year. 

But I am still here. 

Still building. 

Still learning. 

Still walking. 

The promise I made ten years ago was not about reaching a destination. It was about choosing a way of being. 

Today, I am living that life of pilgrimage, one deliberate step at a time.