Dear Val-I don't know if I've ever told you, but in recent years one of the most recurring theme of my dreams is the 3-Day. Before our first walk in Atlanta, I dreamed that the walk course consisted of a huge maze. Folks were coming out talking about how brutal the walk was. I wonder what other first-timers may dream about? I don't know about you, but I couldn't read enough about what the walk would be like, but all the reading in the world couldn't prepare me for the actual experience: wonderful, amazing, and thankfully, maze-free.
The next series of 3-Day dreams included X. We were re-trying a relationship and I brought up the Walk. And X, well he didn't want me walk, just didn't think it was important, and so he was forbidding me to do it. We were riding on a slow-moving train, and when the "I forbid you to do the 3-Day" part came up, I specifically remember looking at him slack-jawed and then jumping off the train. There's a whole lot to read in to there, but in 3-Day terms the meaning is pretty darn clear: the Walk is who I am, not only something I do...and I will walk, no matter what anyone tells me.
Then last night, I was once again dreaming about the 3-Day. (Never can I dream about the actual event...pink tents, walker-stalkers, Uncrustables. Nope, gotta be random.) I like to think of this dream as my 3-Day Amazing Race Dream, because in this one, in order to be allowed out onto the course we had to first successfully complete a series of tasks. We worked and worked, but for some reason we just couldn't do enough. This sounds like some serious fund-raising fears coming to the surface. I worry about fund-raising every year. I feel like a burden on my friends and family, that I'm annoying my co-workers and strangers with requests for money or participation in a fund-raising event. But then today (thanks to the Young Survivor Coalition Twitter feed @YSCBuzz) I came across the My Big Girl Pants blog. Holy crying in the Cube Farm, Val. Talk about putting yourself out there and painting a brutally vivid picture of the emotions, pain, and realities of living with and fighting breast cancer.
Bridget: I walk for YOU.
So, when I get queasy and wishy-washy when I think about stepping outside my comfort zone to send letters or e-mails and fund-raise, I'm gonna (to borrow a phrase from Bridget) put on My Big Girl Pants and not only step outside that comfort zone, I'm going to take a giant leap outside it. Fund raising: here I come.
Happy walking my Two Chicks sister!
Love-
Julie
