Tar Heel Walk

You may not know this, but my wedding is going to be awesome. You see, if you’re any kind of Beatles fan, you might recognize that the title of this post is actually a George Harrison song. You might also find the fact that I’m going to have a Beatles cover band at my wedding to be kick ass, as I do. But, I digress. While the point of this post is not to bore you with every little detail, the more wedding planning I do, the more I’m reminded of how much my life has changed since I completed my first 3-Day Walk in 2008.

I saw a commercial for the 3-Day Walk after returning from a trip to NYC in January 2008. I don’t know why, but the idea of walking 60 miles for breast cancer research struck me as both insane and totally awesome. I’d never walked more than five miles in my life, though in high school I used to be an avid runner and was pretty successful at running cross country (a fact that seems far from reality any time I try to run now!). I played soccer, competed in gymnastics, even briefly practiced ballet (my lack of coordination in general day to day activities fortunately doesn’t seem to carry over to sports). Later in life I picked up riding, but even competing in combined training and dressage didn’t really prepare me for the harsh reality of walking twenty miles per day, three days in a row.

The thing is, I’ve never been much for walking. I’ve always been more of the mindset of…let’s just go…let’s get whatever it is I’m doing done. Even now, I prefer watching faster sports like basketball, soccer and hockey to football. Walking required too much time to actually think. At least, two years later I can look back and say this.

When I began the 60 mile trek in 2008, I had the unconditional support of my friends and family but there were pieces of my life that still hadn’t fallen into place. I still wasn’t sure really of who I was and where I was going in general, though my purpose for the walk was pretty clear. At the time, in a personal relationship I let myself be placed second. And so even though I had just accomplished this huge goal, I spent the better part of the next few months being very angry and regretting that I ever let myself be considered unimportant. I mean – Jesus, I had just walked 60 miles, and instead of giving myself the praise I needed and deserved, I walked straight into a wall and laid down like a doormat. Can I take an aside here, and just say to any fellow ladies who read this blog: don’t EVER let yourself become a doormat. Stand up, dust yourself off, and walk through the door, instead.

When I signed up for the 2009 walk that winter, everything was harder. Exponentially harder. The fundraising, the training, and the hardest of anything – a new disease now affecting my family and the very reason I chose to walk in the first place. I want to take a minute and say how thankful I am that I didn’t lose my mom to breast cancer ten years ago. I am so, so fortunate and many people who have been in my place do not get to say the same thing. Yet, the majority of 2009 was the hardest year of my life. How can it be harder than dealing with the original diagnosis, you might wonder…

I guess, readers/friends, that it all depends on perspective. Still reeling from the conclusion of 2008, I entered 2009 still not completely sure of myself, still not ready to really analyze why I had stopped believing in myself enough to come second to anything. And then in February everything changed. Again. And drastically. Coming back from a trip to Florida, my parents called to let me know that my mom was sick. A run of the mill cold, is what it seemed at first. And yet she didn’t get better. And what we’d always been able to kind of…shove to the side…in terms of memory loss came crashing into my family like a freight train.

I have a hard question for you…and there is no right answer. People always argue which is worse? Losing a loved one too soon, or watching them waste away? What about losing someone suddenly, or knowing that they’re going to make it, but never be the same? Is one ever REALLY better than the other? I don’t think there’s an answer for this. I really don’t.

Suddenly I went from being able to call and talk to my mom daily to not talking to her on the phone at ALL, getting updates from my dad and hearing his frustration at the situation. The upside of this, if you can call it that, is that I feel my dad and I became even closer, having to work through this together. The downside is that my mom continued to suffer extreme memory loss as well as pain, and no doctor could provide us an answer. Let me tell you, I am a Mystery Diagnosis nut, but it’s exponentially better on television…

And so from February to July, we had no real clue as to what was going on. All I knew was that my life had just changed and there wasn’t much I could do about it. When the dementia diagnosis came through, it was another round of anger and hurt. My mom was 60 at the time – this wasn’t supposed to happen yet. Wasn’t I supposed to get married and have children and annoy my parents with babysitting pleas and such first? I spent a lot of time thinking, this isn’t FAIR.

So come October, I walked again. This time by myself. And this time I was ready to walk, and believe me, you have a lot of time to think when you’re walking 60 miles alone. I walked all over D.C. and Maryland and thought about the past year. And I thought about the months to come, and I thought about allowing myself to finally put a lot of the anger aside and realizing how strong the events of the past year have made me.

Last year I walked alone, but in truth I wasn’t walking alone. Feeling the support of thousands of other walkers on their journey helped me even when my damn turf toe flared up again (being told by a pedorthist that you have arthritis in your toe when you’re 26 years old is a little crazy).

This year I walk again, this time with my fiance by my side. We will be walking approximately two weeks before our wedding – I think my dress is long enough to cover the inevitable Hobbit feet I will develop. I am proud that he will be walking with me – what a feeling it is, to have someone who will walk by your side, instead of in front of – or over – you. And to know that you became strong enough to let someone like that into your life, all on your own.

I walked the first 60 miles unsure of myself and what I could do.

I walked the second 60 miles to find out how far I could go on my own.

This year, I walk the third 60 miles to mark a new journey – acceptance of the past and hope for the future.

I wonder what next year will bring?