Rain, cold, new shoes and letting go

I haven't found an internet connection for quite a while, so excuse my silence.
It doesn't mean that anything is wrong, quite the contrary really.
Last time I posted here I had bought new shoes.
Well guess what! I bought new shoes again!!!
You see, the shoes I bought in Estella were cheap and not that great, and after a few days I realised that they were really making my feet sore, so when I arrived in Logroño, which was the next big town I could be in, I decided to go and look for a proper trecking or sports shop, which I found, and I bought proper nice timberland shoes, gore tex and all, and new antishock insoles.
However, of course it still means new shoes, and it makes feet sore.
So the next day I did a small enough day, maybe 16 or 17km, so my feet could get used to the shoes. And they were ok. I was all happy.
The next day I had planned on walking either 10 or 16km, depending on how it would go and how my feet would feel. But I started walking with a German lady in the middle of the day (I had met her already but we bumped into each other again in Nájera, where we both decided to visit a gorgeous monastery and church), and she decided to continue after the 16km.
And I ignored the plea of my feet to try and foll0w her, only to discover after a few kilometers that I had lost her, it was starting to rain, and I had another 8km to walk at least before finding any place to stay for the night.
By the time I reached the albergue, I was soaked, exhausted, hungry, quite annoyed with myself, and my feet were screaming with pain. I could have cried.
On top of it I walked at least 2km too many to try and find the albergue.
But I learnt my lesson.
Never again will I ignore my body when I feel I need to stop. No matter who I am walking with and how nice they are.
For that day nevertheless, the experience ended up being great, as I ended up in a tiny refuge, with only 8 beds, and a lovely Austrian lady who was taking care of it.
She gently took my rucksack of my back when I arrived, gave me a glass of water, later a glass of wine, and the whole experience in that albergue was so beautiful it made me feel good again.
Also, as you have probably noticed, I am now saying "I" and not "we" anymore.
I realised after a few days of walking with Alice that really I want, and need, to walk on my own.
I can't, and don't want to just hook up with someone and then do everything together. The reason it is easy to hook up with someone on the camino, is fear. It is easier to be two when things get tough, when we want to organise where to stay, if we want to discuss whether to try and book an albergue or not (it is theoretically not possible to book a place in an albergue in Spain, but some private albergues accept bookings), etc... Basically all the things that would mean we don't have to trust 100% for everything that will come to us.
Alice was rather a worrier time and tended to have a murky enough energy, and it was important for me to cut the tie, even though I could feel that she didn't understand what happened and that it was painful for her.
I really need to stay with myself, centered and focused, so I can really go MY way, and walk MY camino, and not someone else's.
I learnt in the past few days that one of the messages of the camino for me is, once again, to LET GO.
This path is like that. We meet people all the time, sometimes not so nice, but sometimes really really nice. Sometimes we can feel that a special connection is being made with someone. That happened already three times to me. But then the people we connect to leave earlier or later the next day, walk longer or less, and we lose them. Sometimes for a few days, sometimes we don't see them again at all. And that is part of the way.
It is part of the experience to welcome the new, and let go of the old. And believe me, the new becomes old very quickly.
What an adventure!!