#504: A Traveling Fly Hotel

In 2018…

I staggered across Italy in sneakers…walking 375 miles from Milan to Rome.

Before I started leaving footprints in the Italian countryside, I thought:
“This walk will be my most amazing adventure yet!”

On paper, it definitely had all the makings.

The magic of Italy.
The country of pizza, pasta, and gelato.
Tuscany and picking grapes off vines.

But none of that I remember.

What I remember is nasty, grueling heat.

And flies.
_______

I started walking on July 24…and when I got off the plane, the air was already hot and hard-to-breathe. It was as if I were breathing inside an open oven. As I walked out of July and into August, the 110+ degree heatwave became historic.

I used every motivational tool I knew to keep my feet moving and my spirit at least semi-inspired. But staying motivated becomes close to impossible when every walking minute one is soaked and dripping, unbearably sticky…and a walking hotel for flies.

Yep…flies.

For fifteen miles a day, I became the transport for one hundred flies…each trying to catch a free ride on my hat, shirt, shorts, legs, arms, hands, and face.
In that much heat, even flies knew to look for other means of transportation.

But not me.
I kept walking.

Twenty-five days after leaving Milan, I staggered into Rome.

Upon arriving, there was no pizza or gelato celebration. There was just me slumped on the concrete steps of St. Peter’s Square…head staring down at a pair of dirty, tired sneakers…totally exhausted.

I had zero left in my tank.

And what I most remember about that moment is me whispering to myself over and over: “How did I do that?!”

_______

And here’s my answer.

When times have felt extra impossible – when rejection, doubt, frustration, anxiety, and pain become ultra-real, and when “QUIT!” is what a moment shouts in my face – there’s a path-directing question I’ve learned to ask:

“Tomorrow…what do I wish I would have done…today?”

It’s with that question I have a little self-talk with myself.
Well…Me and Future Me.

I start looking one, five, ten, twenty years down the road…and I wonder:
“Tomorrow…what do I wish I would have done…today?”

And as I walked across Italy…heat raging…flies swarming…my body begging to “QUIT!”…how did I answer my own question?

I whispered: “Keep walking.”

I knew then that’s what my future life scrapbook would have wanted to show. Without fail, Future Me is forever wiser than current Me.

So yeah…
That’s how I walked across Italy.

In a historic heatwave.
Wearing dusty, tired sneakers.
Carrying 25 pounds on my back.
Transporting 100 annoying flies.

Have a big “Turn Left or Right?” decision in your life?

Then ask the question.

“Tomorrow…what do I wish I would have done…today?”