Feet Back Under Me Day 2: Making Plans That Happen!

I am someone who likes to try a lot of things and explore.  BC (which will from now on represent "before cancer") I would get into my car and just drive and see where I would end up.  When I lived in Virginia before, this often took me to out of the way Battlefields to hike.  I loved doing this and I loved making plans with people or by myself to go to new places and old favorites.  I stopped doing that even after I got the energy back to drive longer than a half an hour without shaking from exhaustion.  I don't know why I stopped.

I wanted to do everything I use to do.  But for some reason there was a block.  I would sit on my bed when I was living in Florida telling myself that I was an hour away from the Atlantic Ocean and I needed to just book a hotel room and walk on the beach and explore the shops around there.  That I was only an hour or so from NASA and my love of all things space related was yelling at me to spend the $50 and go on a tour.  But I literally couldn't get myself to move!  Towards the end of my time down there I was finally able to admit that it was probably due to almost crippling depression.  I think the only thing that got me out of bed in the morning to go to work was because my love and excitement for the work I do was stronger than the depression.  Then the weekend would hit and often I would not get out of bed.  I tried to sound happy or talk about all these plans I had to explore the Sunshine State over the phone to friends and family.  And then I would hang up and roll over, saying that I would get up in a few minutes and do more than wander around the tiny 400 square feet I lived in.  That wasn't me.  I don't recognize that person.

Since coming up here I have made plans and hung out with friends and my hike on the mountain pass was my first step back to doing those things I use to do all the time.  It opened something inside me again.  Then yesterday I saw someone who I met when I did my internship.  She became a friend on my first day back then when she saw my port scar (which was pretty fresh from the port removal only a couple months before) and smiled so brightly and said "You had a port!"   and then gave me a big hug!  She was a survivor too and that was it, we were friends!  We had talked about going hiking when I moved up here last fall and I was still breaking out of the bad habit of saying I was going to do something and then rolling over, physically and metaphorically.  Yesterday I told her about my small hike on the pass.  We decided that come March we were going to do some marching on a hike!  And I know it is going to happen because that something that got closed off inside of me and ignored is opening again and I really and truly want to explore again and see what new places and things I can find!  Don't just make plans...make plans and then make them happen!  Here is to a hike with my friend next month and many, many more adventures with my friends and family or even just myself!

Here is a challenge to my fellow fighters and survivors and anyone else who wants to participate.  Big, small or in between, have an adventure and do something new and let me know what you do!  comment on the blog or post where you read this and challenge others as well.  Go to the movies, take a hike, explore a new town, start learning a language, take pictures of your life and make a book...anything!  Maybe if we share those plans with each other we can encourage each other to not roll over in bed and put it off.  We can encourage each other to keep walking (not running!) forward and living life!  Then maybe I can put all the adventures and plans into future blogs and share them around!!  On your mark, get set, GO!