The Beginning of the Insanity...

July 1, 2006

I hate exercise. I have never been an athlete. I pride myself on “Never sweating”. A good friend of mine began running marathons several years ago – and while I was proud of her accomplishments – I thought she was nuts. “I don’t run,” I told everyone who would listen and laugh, “unless something very large and ugly is chasing me!”

Today I received a postcard in the mail from The Wellness Community on Delmarva, asking for people to join their “Strides for Hope Team for the Jamaica Marathon”. Instead of immediately tossing the card into the trash, the evil twin who lives inside my brain perked up with….”Hey….we could do that!!!”

Me: Excuse me? We’ve never ran further than the corner – even in high school – which was more than two decades ago! We hate anything that brings us pain – and the only time we willingly embraced physical labor and pain was for the unassisted childbirth of child #3!

Evil Twin: Exactly! And since we managed that (quite nicely, I add) we can run this marathon!

Me: Ummm…perhaps you’ve noticed we do NOT have a FOURTH child???? Maybe there’s a reason for that!

Evil Twin: Different subject. Listen to me……not only CAN we do this….we NEED to do this!

Me: Whaaaaatttt??????

Evil Twin: Do you remember what The Wellness Community does? Do you remember WHY we know of them, why we’ve used their services?

Unfortunately, I remember all too well why I’m a big supported of The Wellness Community. On December 30, 2005, my best friend was diagnosed with Stage IV Breast Cancer. She was 34 years old, and had two small children. I was with her when the doctor broke the news, and suddenly my brain could not grasp anything beyond the point that “T has advanced cancer. It’s in her lungs, her spine, and her leg. Everything is over.”

I was in shock. I spent weeks bursting into tears at the smallest thing. My children (we homeschool) fended for themselves, the house fell apart, we ate whatever we could scrounge out of the kitchen. I cried and researched cancer. And then I cried more. The odds sucked. Everytime I told someone about my friend, they had their own story to share. The stories always ended with…..”and she died.” I stopped telling people.

I knew I needed an outlet for my grief. It had gotten to the point that the only conversations my husband and I shared, after he worked 12 hours a day, were about T and Cancer. I knew it wasn’t fair – but I needed to get the feelings out.

One day I noticed in the newspaper that a Cancer Support group, for people who have family or friends affected by cancer, was meeting in Easton! I clipped out the number, but didn’t call. I have always solved my own issues, I’ve never been in a group therapy setup. I muddled on.

A week or so later I had a really bad Cancer day. The kind of day when Cancer is all you can think about – and all you can do is cry. I realized my children deserved better than this, so I called the number from the newspaper, and explained my situation. They welcomed me with open arms, and I joined the bi-monthly support group in Easton. It was amazing. The facilitator, Pam Black, was incredible. She was so good at recognizing when we were trying to take on too much, or not trying enough. She really confronted us about our emotions, our problems, and possible solutions. I soon became able to deal with having Cancer in my life, without letting it take over my entire life.

I’m thrilled to say that my friend’s Stage IV cancer is almost in complete remission. Most doctors predict that a year or so of remission is the best we can expect – but we’ve talked with others who have heard similar things, and are still around and living full, productive lives. My friend realized Cancer is her wake-up call; and has totally restructured her life and made some hard decisions. She’s happy. She now calls cancer her self-improvement program.

I’ve been working on my own self-improvement program. Many of my goals center on writing, motivating others, public speaking and travel. But under the community and charity goal I had written, “Raise $50,000 for The Wellness Community by 1/1/08”. Another goal was focusing on my health, including diet, hydration, and exercise.

And now I am looking at a postcard asking for people to raise money for The Wellness Community by participating in a marathon – and the marathon is in Jamaica! The books I’ve been reading continually tell me that when we decide what we want, the universe offers us the opportunity to reach those goals. We simply need to be in a receptive enough state to recognize the challenge and rise to meet it.

Well, this is certainly a challenge. Not only have I NEVER been athletic, but I find the whole idea distasteful. More importantly, my past is littered with dreams that I abandon when they become too difficult. I’m not known for my persistence and determination. I’m not known for stating a distant goal….and reaching it.

Still, I want to change my life. I want to dream impossible dreams, and I want to make them come true. I want a life worth living. I want to make a difference.

I have told the universe what I want to achieve in my life – and I received a postcard for the Strides for Hope Team.

It is up to me what I do with what the universe has sent me.