My green blue ocean eyes (Day 15)

One of the traditions on the Camino is to spend time thinking about the blessings that life has offered you as thinking about your blessings make the burdens lighter.

Today we had a short day of only 21 kms so I decided to walk alone completely, leaving relatively late to be able to think uninterrupted. I was a little anxious about this blessing journey that I was about to take which turned out to be unnecessary (typical for me).

I decided to tackle project blessings once I reached the below spot.

And I wrote this blog in the below cafe on the Camino while chugging down my chocolate croissant (salute to Amy), cheese sandwich and two Kas lemons!

About 25 years ago, in 1999, I had to decide between three universities to do my PHD. It was between Rice, Notre Dame, and University of California Santa Barbara. Eventually, despite Notre Dame having better name recognition (at least in Türkiye), I decided to go with UCSB. The biggest blessing in my life was that decision as it led me to Amy.

I met Amy at the orientation day of our PhD program in September 99. She was wearing green overalls with a red sweater underneath with two cute pigtails. The first thing I noticed about her (despite very questionable fashion choices that she carried over to the Camino - known as the 7 layer lady) were her green blue ocean eyes that slightly changed color based on lighting like the ocean does. She claims, when she met me, I was wearing skinny euro jeans that were way too small for me revealing too much detail. Clearly we did not enjoy each other‘s fashion choices.

Amy and I quickly became friends first and then good friends (we are great friends now). We spent a lot of time together during the first year of our PHD program; both of us were at the bottom half of our class’ academic abilities and there was a hierarchy amongst the 13 of us based on those abilities. This created more time for us to hang out and develop our friendship. I also needed her for all my assignments as she was way better in math than me. From her perspective, I was clearly just drop dead gorgeous and that’s why she wanted to hang out with me more and more. Due to my exotic charm. During our first year we started dating and then got married in Turkey in 2001.

I have been married to Amy for almost 23 years and I don’t know where my life would be without her. However, I am certain, I would be less happy, less healthy, without my 3 beautiful girls and less successful in my professional life. There are many things I love about her (her eyes, how she always smells good, her humor, her adventurous spirit, her constant desire to learn and push herself…..) but wanted to focus today on thinking about one of her qualities that makes her, her…and that is her emotional generosity towards me and her kids.

When I am in a dark place (which is almost always work/career related - need to get over that Ahmet!) Amy will spend countless hours joining me in the dark, helping me with working through the emotions and slowly dragging me out that dark place. She does the exact same thing with her daughters, always joining them where they are with the only intention to walk out of that darkness together. In 25 years knowing her, she has not once cut me down emotionally even at times when I deserve it. She spends her emotional energy to always build me up (Queen of Big R’s) and guiding me through the complexities and difficulties of life. She is the lighthouse that is always there, to comfort and guide me and never expecting anything in return. She is my most important blessing in life.

Today I want my blog to be about Amy and nothing else so won’t write about the Camino.

Love you my green blue ocean eyes.

PS: yeah… I am still kicking ass on the Camino!

Photos from the day. The ruins had an albuerge built in.

Kms today: 21.5 kms

Kms total: 371.5 kms

Steps total: 158.4k Amy, 487.5k Ahmet