My Walker's Pack arrived yesterday with my map, sponsorship form and (very pink) tee-shirt.
I may have had a teeny tiny freak out.
But I'm okay now.
I reminded myself that it's for a really good cause. I thought of how absolutely horrible it was to be the ones caring for the MIL when she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and reminded myself that St. Anne's Hospice do that for ten people at a time, every day, over and over again. I honestly don't know how the people who work there have the strength to do it. It broke me.
So... I will do it. Every single mile. I will raise the money - and more, hopefully!
But I can't promise I won't die doing it. Lol. The DH and I had a look at the map last night. He just laughed. At my level of fitness, it's going to be very, very hard to get ready for this walk - and I've only got until the 22nd of this month! (Eeep.)
I've been thinking about the charity and volunteer work I used to do when I was living in America. I did the March of Dimes and the Relay for Life (which I posted about last weekend) but I also did a bit of volunteer work when I was at CMU. I worked the soup kitchen and volunteered at the Haunted Forest and HalloWeekends. HalloWeekend at Cedar Point was probably the scariest for me because it meant the whole weekend away from anyone I knew. No support net - that's what I find the hardest.
Magical House on Boo Hill. This is the "ride" we worked at - dressed as clowns. I'm glad there are no photos of that!
I can handle just about anything if I have friends with me to cheer me on but... Doing the Midnight Walk by myself? That's what scares me the most, I think. So I'm using HalloWeekends as my inspiration. I was terrified of doing it but ended up having a good time. It was lonely, yes, but I did it and enjoyed it. The one thing that I found disappointing was that I came away from it not having made any new friendships. Three days with the same group of people and I didn't get to know any of them any better. That's sad.
Although I'm still terrified of doing this by mself, I'm not the defensive little girl I was back then. I don't just want to do this, I want to make connections while doing it. Maybe I'm setting the bar too high for myself. Maybe I'll have another freak out on the day. But I'm still going to give it a go. Wish me luck!
