The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

While in a road trip last Friday, I read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. The church Ladies' Group is reading it to discuss next month, so I thought 5 hrs in the car was the perfect time to tackle it.

The book is set in England, and I loved learning new words and phrases associated with the British English. A map was provided at the beginning of the book to help you trace his steps from the southern tip of Great Britain to the northern area. I really liked this. I love England, and I could relate to parts of his trip since I had traveled to the London area a few times.

As I write this, I do not have the book in front of me to check my details, but I'm not off much, and any mistakes won't change what I mean.

Harold, a retired gentleman in his 60s, set out to mail a letter, but he decided, on a whim, to just keep walking by the mailboxes and post offices to deliver the letter in person. As the story unfolds, you learn why seeing this person in person is so important and why the walking is the best form of transportation.

On his journey, he met various people who helped him in different ways, taught him life lessons, helped him to see life differently, and supported him as he focused and was determined to get to his final destination.

He had plenty of time to think about life, his job, his wife, his son, his friends and neighbors, regrets, accomplishments, and so much more. He remembered happy memories as well as sad, including terrible memories he really didn't want to recall. He processed everything from his childhood to adolescence to marriage to parenthood to retirement. He had a lot of time to think. He processed everything he had not processed before, saw things in a new light, and came out in the end "a new man" ready to face the rest of his life.  In the end, I believe he had over 80+ days to think, remember, and process.

Have you taken the time to think, remember, and process your life? Have you had a major change in your life that forced you to think and process, even if you didn't want to do it? How did you feel?

With the big life changes I have had these last two years, I have had time to reflect.  More so in the last 13 months. While Harold thought through his memories and processed things that had happened, there were times he would have a memory and push it away, but it would come back, and he eventually did process it. It I have a memory or thought I don't want to process, I just keep pushing it away. It hurts to process those thoughts. My biggest issue is that I can process and deal with my role or thoughts. I have terrible trouble or more pain when dealing with others, their actions, their thoughts, why they are the way they are, why they do/did what they do/did. Memories or problems that have me asking, "Why?" are the most difficult. In the end, the final decisions have little to do with me, but they hurt nonetheless, and I can't do anything about it.