Handprints on the sidewalk reminding me of innocence gone by. Of melting icicles, of giggling schoolgirls, and of high school crushes. Do you remember when you went to your first class and you met your very best friend? You thought that you would be best friends forever and forever. Do you remember that boy that you thought you would die if he did not notice you? He was so cute that you forgot to breath. So, go out and play a game of tag. Stop and enjoy the warmth of the summer sun. And, last but not least, place your handprints on the sidewalk!
Author: Pat Kornelson
Hope
Hope begins like the smallest acorn that falls to the ground. That same acorn, at the first snow fall, surrenders its hard, encrusted shell and, over the course of Winter, seemingly vanishes into the good Earth. Has it disappeared? Is it gone for good? "No", is the resounding cry! Then, a miracle takes place. From deep within the harden soil, a green string begins threading its way through the rocks and dirt. And, all at once, a seedling appears. Its leaves turn toward the sun. And, with the progression of time, in its place, will grow a mighty oak tree. Hope begins small. Seems to vanish. And, when all seems lost, the tiniest spark, appears. And then, that tiny spark turns into a radiate light.
Just Write
My favorite scene of all the movies or tv shows that I watch is when the actor starts shouting at the director, “what’s my motivation?” I would like to believe that most of us struggle with motivation for a goal, or an activity. This lack of motivation leads to unfulfilled dreams, a lack of direction, and a lost of hope. I have seen this progression in my own life. Over the years, I struggled with motivation for so many things, like studying for school or eating healthy foods. I want to shout to someone, “What’s my motivation?” Struggling to find motivation is especially true when it comes to my personal dreams, such as being a writer. I don’t remember a time when I haven’t dreamed of being a writer.
When I was a teenager, I dreamed of writing to take my revenge out on my bullies. After every time someone bullied me, my personal mantra was, “I am going to write a book about this …”. I would imagine the embarrassment that each of the people who had hurt me would have as they read about what they did to me in my book. Also, anyone who read my book would discover what a terrible childhood and feel sorry for me – the hyperbole of a teenager. Interesting enough, I never thought of writing any of these incidents down on paper. I am relieved because, as I grew up, I was able to put most of these incidents in perspective and even forgive most, if not all of these people. Also, a funny thing that happened as I grew up, I couldn’t remember what happened as I grew up into an adult. So many life events happened, such as going to college and university, that I didn’t have time to rehearse my old hurts. So, for many years I didn’t even think of writing. Then, as my life had just survived the Y2K bug, I was inspired to start writing.
In 2001, I was struggling with many decisions. I was taking a break from completing my residency to become a psychologist and trying to decide whether to return to that pursuit. I also was struggling with the church that I was attending at the time. Although I dearly loved the pastors at this church, I couldn’t find rides to that church. My friend, who I was renting from, stopped going to that church after a falling out with the pastors. In addition, other church members couldn’t pick me up for church and make it to church on time. Even now, I am flooded with a mixture of feelings— sadness, regret, and anger. I have forgiven each person involved but like my pastors once said, “Feelings may come about a particular incident, but it’s your choice to continue to walk in forgiveness.” I still choose to forgive, even when these old feelings arise. Most importantly, I felt that I was too dependent on the advice I received from the pastors or some of the church members. I wanted to hear from God on my own. During my struggle, I came upon a wonderful book called the “The Tree that Survived the Winter” by Mary Fahy. It was a wonderful book that helped me in so many ways. The actual book was about a tree that survived winter, of course. However, the underlying message was about working through the feelings that happen after surviving a devastating loss. This book helped me work through my feelings of fear, anger, and even depression. It also helped me to make the major decision to move back home to Medicine Hat. I always thought that I could return to my provisional psychology residency in Medicine Hat. I will write on that topic in a later blog. This book also inspired me to write a couple of children’s books — “Molly the Caterpillar Grows Up” and “Bert, the Bumblebee, Who is Afraid to Fly”. Both books had the theme of trying new things and overcoming childhood fears. I was feeling hopeful and adventurous when I returned to Medicine Hat. I was ready to be a writer.
I worked on writing for a year. I revised both books that I wrote in Calgary until I felt comfortable sharing them with an audience. I chose a select group of people to read and edit these books, ensuring that I included children – my target audience. I also was writing a third book, “Lillian the Ladybug: Can I Make a Difference?”, which would be connected to my first two books to complete a series of books entitled “God Made Me Unique”. I wanted children to know that God loved them, cared for them, and made them in a unique way to fulfill His purposes. My third book was inspired by my mother, Lillian, who seemed to be hiding from life. (I discovered that I was wrong about my mom hiding away from life, but that is a story for another time.) I also wrote a separate book inspired by my “niece” Chyann who was struggling with the ideal of having a baby sibling. Her fear, at the time, was that her mother wouldn’t love her as much as the new baby. I wrote a children’s book that included my roommate’s older cat, Boomerang, and her new kitten, Mini. Boomerang was afraid that the new kitten would replace him and ran away from home. The story continues from this point with the underlying message that each of us have value because of who we are, and nothing can change that fact. So why aren’t these wonderful books published? I ran into my next obstacle — attempting to get them published. I couldn’t find a way to get them published without paying out money. Consequently, I put aside my writing in order to work and to save up enough money to publish these books. As I worked, I lost my focus of saving enough money to publish my books, and my focus became my work.
In 2010, I moved to Southlands Boulevard because my friend was selling her place for personal reasons. I worked at a local mental health association and was enjoying the freedom that came with paying low rent and being able to buy other necessities that come with living. Then, in 2012, a sudden change occurred – my position was cut from the mental health association due to budget restrictions. I was disappointed and frightened that I would find no other work, and never thought of going back to my writing. I wanted to go back to work. During my time of unemployment, I did complete a couple of poems, but was otherwise blocked regarding writing. After a year of struggle, I was hired at the second-hand store connected with the local mental health association as well as rehired as a group facilitator. Also, I began to date my friend’s brother from high school. Life was sweet. Who needed writing?
I did, that’s who! I wrote for the sake of revenge on other people. I wrote to help me sort out life decisions, my past, and my mangled emotions. I even dreamed of a career in writing, after my several children’s book were revised until there seemed to be no more revisions to be found. Even after not finding a publisher or illustrator, this dream of writing continued in my heart. This dream of writing continued simply because, as a child, it was wonderful coping mechanism. I not only dreamed of revenge plots for the scary and humiliating times in my life but also spent time writing in my head to help me to escape from reality and journey into other worlds – some were real, and some were fantasies. I never wrote any of these stories down because I couldn’t capture them on paper. I would sit down to write them down and all these words fled, and my paper would remain blank. It wasn’t until 2001 that I learned to just sit down and write down some words until it became a story. There were so many times I tried to write and failed. After another series of budget cutbacks were made, by the local Mental Health Association, leaving me unemployed, I tried again to write stories, even a novel, but somewhere along the way I lost my motivation. And again, I stopped writing. Without a venue to share my writing, it seemed pointless. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon another writer, Xochitl Dixon, that I found a truly good reason to write my prayers, thoughts, poems, stories, and so much more!
As part of our daily devotions, my husband Kevin and I would read “Our Daily Bread”. It is a monthly faith magazine which has short devotionals by various contributors to help its readers grow in their spiritual life. I loved these devotionals that helped to focus on an aspect of my faith and use the bible verse as well as the practical advice to live out my faith. One of the writers that I enjoyed as well as identified with was Xochitl Dixon. Her stories would cut through the many layers of artificiality and touch me in my most vulnerable areas of the heart. I felt like there was someone out in the world who had the same struggles as myself and found a faith during her struggles. So, after a couple of years of enjoying her contributions, I researched her name. And I was blown away. I found a woman of tremendous faith who, like me, wanted to be part of the faith community, struggled with disability, and even had a service dog! Her reasons for writing were to make “the life-changing wisdom of the Bible understandable and accessible to all.”[1] I loved this type of motivation but didn’t see myself as a Biblical scholar. Then, I saw a hyperlink that would become my true inspiration – “Write to Worship”. The hyperlink is broken but it did inspire me to change my motivation to a more permanent and eternal one – worship of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. I realized that I may not be able to sing, speak elegantly, or prophesy the future; I could write my thoughts down and share them with others as a form of worship. I could write my poems, stories, and blog posts and, even if no one read it, I would be worshipping my God with the talent that he gave me. This motivation inspires me to write whatever for God and allow God to help to find people who need the same encouragement that Xochitl gave me.
[1] “|Xochitl Dixon.” | Xochitl Dixon, https://www.xedixon.com/.
Are We Having Fun, Yet?
Time flies whether you’re having fun or not. The choice is yours.
Mary Engelbreit[1]
Over the long weekend in August, a friend of mine asked me to camp with her. Even though I am not much of a camper, I thought it would be fun, especially because we would be in a trailer. The trailer had air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and a stove to cook our meals. It would be an improvement over previous camping trips involving a tent, lots of rain, and the two of us huddled in a car. With our basic needs taken care of, we planned to enjoy the beautiful weather, go for walks, eat a good meal, and to talk over a glass of wine.
As Robbie Burns says, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”[2], and, boy, our plans did our plans go awry! When we got to the trailer, we discovered that there was no air conditioning because there was no electricity. We needed air conditioning because it turned out to be one of the hottest weekends in year, reaching 38° C on August 1, 2021. That was hot! Added to the extreme heat, we struggled with getting the refrigerator to work, and much of the food that we brought we had to throw out. With the remaining edible food, we didn’t cook it because my friend’s camping stove was so new that she couldn’t figure how to use it. It was a weekend that would cause anyone to throw up their hands and shout, “I give up!” However, we did not give up nor did we shout, “I give up!”, which I’m sure our fellow campers appreciated!
Instead, we decided to make the best of the rest of our weekend. Because my friend’s sister and brother-in-law loaned the trailer of the goodness of their hearts, we decided to be grateful for this gift from her family. As an act of kindness, they wanted my friend to get away from her daily stress and unwind in nature. We realized that not everyone had an opportunity to go camping, especially on a long weekend. Most people would not have friends or family who could/would lend them a trailer. Furthermore, most parks were booked up for the long weekend. My friend’s family not only had a trailer to lend, but also had it set up in a beautiful park approximately 25 minutes from our hometown. That meant we could enjoy nature as much as we possible and run into town whenever we needed—the best of both worlds. We were also thankful for our generous and kind neighbors. When we couldn’t get the refrigerator working, my friend got up the courage to ask our next-door neighbors—even though she didn’t know them. They were both willing and eager to help us with this problem. It turned out that the fridge worked but was on the wrong setting for keeping our food cold enough to preserve. It was a simple fix. Also, our neighbors behind our lot introduced themselves, visited with us for a short time, and even invited us to party with them. As we were middle aged women, and they were in their twenties, we didn’t take them up on their offer. However, we did appreciate the thought. Practicing gratitude helped us to see what we had and enjoy it.
Also, we learned to be flexible with our plans. When we discovered that there was no air conditioning, we went back into town, and enjoyed the air conditioning at my friend’s house. We realized that we could still visit at her place as much as at the camp. The bonus was that we could have a bath. Since we thought that shower facilities were not available (which turned out to be false), we had not planned to bathe until Monday—after all, we were camping. When we needed to go to her place to cool off, we had a bath, too! By changing our plans, we upgraded them. When my friend could not work the camping stove, we made delicious wraps and she boiled farm fresh corn. Yum! When we discovered that the indoor plumbing was limited, we only used the plumbing in case of emergencies or for middle of night trips. We decided that day trips as well as any other bodily functions could be handled by public washrooms. (Unfortunately for sister and brother-in-law, we are both middle-aged, so emergency and midnight trips were a necessity. After the long weekend, even with the occasional trip, it did stink. So, sorry about that one! Hopefully, they were just as flexible as we chose to be over the weekend.) The willingness to be flexible reduced the stress of the weekend. This shift in our attitude made our weekend a lot more fun.
There are so many ways to have fun: some people, like myself, play games on their phone, read books, and write stories; other people go for hikes, fish, and set up a tent to camp for fun. The common thread is both the attitude and practice that an individual brings to these activities.[3]
If you think that you are not having fun, you are probably not. Conversely, if you think that you are having fun—well, you know.
Works Cited
Brown, Brene. The Gifts of Imperfection. Hazelden, 2010
Engelbreit, Mary. “Top 40 Mary Engelbreit Quotes.” Quote Fancy, https://quotefancy.com/mary-engelbreit-quotes. Accessed 10 September 2021
[1] Engelbreit, Mary. “Top 40 Mary Engelbreit Quotes.” Quote Fancy, https://quotefancy.com/mary-engelbreit-quotes. Accessed 10 September 2021
[2] “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Dictionary. Com. Dictionary, 2021. Web. 10 September 2021
[3] In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown suggests that the practice of gratitude is “a call to action.” (Brown 78) It is “keeping a gratitude journal, doing daily gratitude meditations or prayers, creating gratitude art, or even stopping during their stressful, busy day to actually say these words out loud: ‘I am grateful for …’ When the Wholehearted talk about gratitude, there are a whole bunch of verbs involved.” (Brown 78n9)
I am an Ogre
Shrek: Ogres are like onions.
Donkey: They stink?
Shrek: Yes. No.
Donkey: Oh, they make you cry.
Shrek: No.
Donkey: Oh, you leave em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin’ little white hairs.
Shrek: No. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.
I love Shrek. Shrek is a reluctant anti-hero in an anti-fairy tale. The movie starts out with Shrek living on his own and minding his own business. Then, the winds of change blow and Shrek is faced with a swamp load of fairy tale characters who, if truth be known, do not live up to their fairy tale story. Shrek is, of course, very unhappy about his situation. When he discovers Lord Farquaad is responsible for his overrun swamp, he marches off to confront this troublesome ruler. Along the way, Shrek picks up an irritating sidekick named Donkey. After a battle with Lord Farquaad’s knights and subsequent confrontation with the less than noble ruler, Shrek discovers that he must go on a quest that Lord Farquaad refuses to do for himself. I mean why do something like endanger your life if you can thrust that work on someone else? Thus, begins the incredible journey of the lone grumpy ogre Shrek.
There are so many messages to gain from this movie. Like the above quote suggests, this movie has layers. First, it satirizes the antiquated fairy tale theme of a knight in shining armour rescuing the beautiful princess. Shrek is no knight in shining armour. Princess Fiona, in turns out, is no beautiful princess locked in a tower. Fiona has a deep, dark secret. She, herself, is a part-time ogre. Aren’t we all?
Second, the film teaches tolerance and ultimately acceptance. No one is who they appear to be. Shrek, the ogre, turns out to be a courageous and compassionate hero. The dragon, who guards the castle, is a woman who finds love in an unexpected place. On the other hand, Lord Farquaad is shallow and little man who wants to be king at all costs. We learn, as we travel with Shrek, that being alone may work for short term but in long term, being with friends, no matter how quirky they are, is better than being alone.
My favorite message, though, is taken from the above quote-ogres have layers! Like Shrek, I like to be treated as a complex human being. Most people, when they first meet me, see my disability. It’s hard not to notice my “unique” walk. I have the classic scissor gait walk-meaning that my legs open above my knee, pinch in at my knees, and open below my knees like those old-fashioned steel scissors. Also, my feet precariously turn in on themselves. I look like I could fall over at any time. Lastly, I have a speech impediment which causes difficulty in the speed and enunciation of my words. So, upon meeting me, people treat me in two quite different ways. The first way is to make everything about my disability. Either I need tremendous help, or I need to ensure I keep my independence. Either way, the entire conversation relates to my disability. Like I said, it is hard not to notice the leaning tower of Pat.
The opposite way truly fascinates me. People will ignore or claim to “forget” that I have a disability. I understand their reasoning behind this approach. People who ignore my disability want to be open-minded and fair. I used to love and appreciate this approach when I was younger, however, as I grow older, I need to acknowledge the elephant in room without feeling guilty. Also, I want to advocate for the next generation. Discrimination is still alive and well, even in tolerant Canada and I want to both acknowledge and fight against these harmful practices.
Thus far, it seems like I am the one mainly talking about my disability. True! I am finding that I must talk about the elephant in the room in order to have it removed. I also want to talk about other aspects of myself. In my counselling internship, I learned this technique whereupon I would ask the client – “who are you?”. They would answer with a categorization that would limit or stereotype themselves. I, as a counselor, would answer back with a category that can help broaden their view of themselves. Then, I would answer, “Isn’t it great that you’re both at the same time. The whole idea is to teach that individual that they are complex, multilayered human being. In sum, they are ogres! That is what I want to be too! I am an ogre-a complex and multilayered human. One last note: I prefer to be a parfait not an onion!
Where Am I Now?
At the beginning of February 2019, I began my “virtual walk across Canada. I choose Prince Rupert as a starting point because I thought was this city as furthest west in Canada. (I am not a geographic wizard, so if there is a city or village that is further west, I ask both your indulgence and forgiveness for my error in judgement. It felt like a good starting point.) Each day, I tried to complete my goal of three kilometers a day. Some days, I completed more than my allocated three kilometers a day. Other days, I barely “virtually walked” a kilometer in a day. When I started my journey, I had not bought into this goal, and I did not believe that I could or would be persistent enough to do 3 km a day for 6.67 years! I never saw myself as a person who was good at follow through, especially with such a long-term goal. However, that was an aspect of this goal – to see if I could endure – even if the goal were more over five years away. I wanted to start seeing where I would be in five years, not just six months or a year from now. I wanted to start thinking long-term.
I loved watching my progression through the province of B.C.-from Prince Rupert to Terrace and beyond. There were so many interesting lessons I learned along the way. I learned that I could improve my geographic knowledge. I remember one night when I was visiting with my in-laws. My father-in-law was talking about growing up in B. C. I asked him where his family lived in B. C. He told me that I probably would not know it because it was a small northern town. I told him that I was “virtually walking” across Canada and to try me and see if I knew it. He told he was from Hazelton, B. C. I told him I knew exactly where that was because I “virtually walked|” by it. I was so proud of myself – from being geographically challenged to geographically knowledgeable!
Another lesson I learned was that you can complete anything if you keep doing every day. Like I previously said, my “virtual walk” was slow because I was not always committed to this “virtual walk” but eventually I completed B. C. It took me a year to do but I did it. I learned that with persistency and consistency that I could complete a goal. Throughout my journey, I learned that if I complete my daily, I can progress toward my end goal and achieve it. Achieving one of my mini goals helped me to learn consistency. When I completed B. C. in a year, it led me to be more consistent in completing my daily goal of three kilometers. So, in the year of 2020, I was able to “virtually walk” through Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba and end up in Ontario. I learned that if I stick to a daily goal that my larger goals will be completed.
Lastly, I was learning that I lived in interesting country-Canada! I need to give you a little backstory. I was not interested in writing about my “virtual walking” experience. So many people were virtual walking that it was becoming a common experience. I did not think that I had anything new to say or that my story was important. Then, I was watching my local news. Our local M. L. A. came on the news and advocated for regionalism regarding whether to open businesses, recreation facilities, and other amenities. According to him, if region were doing well, it could be opened while other regions stayed closed. I became concerned with this rise in regionalism. Regionalism is “a political ideology which seeks to increase the political power, influence and/or self-determination of the people of one or more subnational regions. “1. From this definition, everything sounds legit, especially for such a large as Canada. Certain people, in provinces such as Alberta and Quebec, feel underrepresented in the Canadian government. Sounds fair, right? The biggest difficulty with regionalism can lead to huge divisions and ultimately separatism. As a nation begins to divide, regions can hoard their resources or cut off their resources to other regions. For example, the feud that was created between B. C. and Alberta. B. C. refused the building of pipeline through its province. Alberta retaliated by cutting off any oil to B. C. B.C. counter-retaliated by cutting off its wine supply to Alberta. Feuds, like these types, weaken Canada as a nation and hurt our creditability in the international community. After all, what would our neighbors think? Soapbox completed! My father was born in Saskatchewan and lived in Alberta. My mother was born in Nova Scotia and eventually moved out to Alberta. As a child of interprovincial marriage, I learned to appreciate the many regions of Canada. As my mom would often say, “I am Canadian!” Therefore, as I write this blog, I want to show that our differences are what make Canada a beautiful and interesting country.
Today, I am proud to say that I passed Val-d’Or, Quebec and am heading towards Sakitawatbikak, Quebec. That is 4,561.4 km in 962 days or 60% of my journey! Over the last few years, I learned a lot about me and what I believe about myself and Canada. Ultimately, I learned that you do not have to leave your front yard to learn and grow. You can set an internal goal and grow from there!
The Journey begins …
My grandmother started walking 5 miles a day when she was 60. She’s 97 today, and we don’t know where the hell she is.
Ellen DeGeneres
The upside to “virtual walking” is never getting lost unless you live in Ellen DeGeneres’ mansion. I picture Ellen yelling, “Marco”, and Portia responding, “Polo.” Their home is beautiful but appears enormous — from what I saw while watching the Ellen DeGeneres show, Home Edition. I could wear out a lot of shoes in that house! Unfortunately, my home isn’t as big as Ellen’s so justifying buying shoes is difficult. However, I still try to justify my shoe shopping because it is walking, after all.
Even though I can’t justify buying more shoes, I enjoyed my “virtual walks” to cities such as Calgary and Edmonton. These “walks” motivated me, aided creativity in other areas of my life such as writing, and I looked forward to my achievements from “virtual walking” each day.
After completing these “walks”, I decided that I wanted a goal that would push my motivation, endurance, and give me, at the very least, virtual bragging rights. LOL. I searched for a goal that would meet these requirements and struggled to find one. Then inspiration struck me at my physical therapist’s office. As I was waiting for my appointment, I scanned this room to see if I can discover anything interesting in it. (I didn’t always want to be on my iPhone!) The most central item in this room was an autographed picture of Rick Hansen. He was seated in front of a desert background, with hands gripped on the wheels of his wheelchair, biceps tensed, bent forward for the first push of his incredible journey. Rick Hansen’s poster inspired me to search his route to see if it was the right fit for me. After looking up the route for Rick Hansen’s world tour, I discovered that he went to several countries, including Canada. I debated about this route and decided that I wanted my route to focus on Canada alone. This decision to focus on Canada lead me to think of another national inspiration – Terry Fox. When I researched Terry Fox’s route, I could not find the complete route. Most sites showed his route up until the place where he was evacuated to face his last battle with cancer. This detail was both frustrating and sad for me. Frustrating, because I wanted to honor Terry Fox and I couldn’t find his complete route to virtually finish it. Sad, because I was reminded that this was the route that took his life.
After searching Terry Fox’s complete route with no results, I tried an alternative search by entering the phrases “virtual walk” and “across Canada”. The results took me to several “virtual walking” apps where I could map my way across Canada. As I shuffled through these apps, I found some apps were too expensive for only drawing a route across Canada. Other apps were far too complicated to try to create a route. I felt like Goldilocks, looking for an app that was just right. As I was about to give up my search, I found an app called “my virtual mission”. It was moderately priced, and after careful examination, I found that it was easy to use. I dropped one marker (a flag) at where I wanted to begin (Prince Rupert, B. C.), and the other marker at where I wanted to end my route (St. John’s, N. L.). Myvirtualmission automatically drew a blue line between these two points. The app asked how many kilometres I felt that could complete in a day and calculated the length of time it would take me to complete this route. I could either manually enter my kilometers under the “progress” tab or sync my Apple health app with it so that it would automatically enter kilometers. I do need to make a confession here. I did sync this app with Under Armour’s “mapmyfitness” app because I thought it might automatically send my kilometers to the “mapmyfitness” app; however, it did the exact opposite. When I had to log kilometres, in my “mapmyfitness” app, I ended up with double the kilometers in my “myvirtualmission” app. At first, I thought of disconnecting the sync between the two apps, but then I thought, “I am not a professional or doing this route for money.” So, I left it. After all, I needed to give myself a break. For me, how I completed the journey was not as important as the actual completion of the journey. And so far, it has been an incredible journey!
I’m Walking Here
I was born with Cerebral Palsy – a disability that affects both my motor coordination and balance. Normally, I don’t think about my disability. On occasion, I tested gravity but, generally, I adapted to my disability. My motto is, “I have Cerebral Palsy, but it doesn’t have me.”
This positive attitude helped me to take a leap of faith and attend Hillcrest Christian College. This changed the trajectory of my life. I met Virginia Sherman, Dean of Women, who encouraged me to pursue a higher education, which I did! I started off small and worked slowly through my degrees. Finally, I achieved my Master’s Degree of Psychology, specializing in Counselling Psychology at University of Calgary. Huzzah! Unfortunately, I spent most of my time studying rather than keeping connections with other people, gaining employment experience, and maintaining my overall health. After my studies, when I moved to Medicine Hat, I gained real world employment experience and connections. I am grateful to all my employers who trained and supported me. You are all truly woke! I joined several groups, such as a community book club, recovery group, and writing class to balance out my social, mental, and emotional health.
However, I neglected one area – my physical health. It wasn’t until I noticed a decline in my coordination and balance that I realized that I needed to take proactive steps to recover my physical health. It was difficult. When I began to take walks, I fell often because of a decline in my motor coordination and balance. Still, I knew from previous experience, walking was the safest exercise to recover muscle coordination and balance. It was a catch 22! Walking was hard because I would fall; but, without walking, I would continue to decline. So, I began to take physiotherapy and searched for a safe way to start walking, and thereby improve my mobility. The easiest way for me to achieve both goals was to walk on the spot. It worked well for a short time, but then boredom raised its ugly head. I don’t know if you noticed it but walking in one place for even ten minutes can become tedious pretty darn fast. That’s what happened to me. I found myself looking at my Fitbit every thirty seconds. Because of boredom, I would start and stop my walking. One day, I had enough: I was tired of attempting a goal and failing. I knew that I needed a concrete way to stay motivated.
This is when I discovered “virtual walking”. I don’t recall exactly when and where I discovered it, but I do know it wasn’t my idea. Virtual walking is an activity that I could complete by using a treadmill, stationary bike, or elliptical machine. I bought my first elliptical at a garage sale for a whooping $20.00. I started off with small goals, such as “I will walk 20 km in a month.” Once I completed this goal, I would examine how long it took me to complete it. If it took less than a month, I would increase the number of kilometers – usually by increments of 5.
After a year of working with distance goals, I decided to switch it up by using walking apps that increased the amount of time. My favorite app is “Walking for Weight Loss” by ABISHKKING LIMITED. With this app, I began at the beginner level and worked my way up to the advanced level. Each level has a twelve-week time, where I slowly increased my time until I reached the twelfth week on that level. Then, I moved on to the next level. The whole idea is that if I slowly increased my time, I would become fitter and burn more calories and lose weight. I loved the challenge of increased time because I could tell that I was achieving a concrete goal. Also, after a year, I lost some weight. With this app, I could determine whether I was improving my daily time and weekly time. The developers include feedback emojis of “too hard”, “perfect”, or “too easy.” If a day of training was “too hard”, I could repeat it until it was “perfect”, or, even better, “too easy”. It was an objective way, outside of my own wishful thinking, to see actual improvement. I also could combine distance with this app to feel like I was getting somewhere.
My next venture was to virtually travel to a town or city. For my first “virtual walk” with a destination, I chose to go from Medicine Hat to Lethbridge on my elliptical machine. I researched the total distance in kilometers between Medicine Hat and Lethbridge and subtracted from total number each time I used my elliptical during the week. My favorite part was to record the small towns along the way. For example, when I “virtually walked” to Bow Island, I wrote down its name on my map.
I continued “visiting” small towns until I got to my end goal – Lethbridge. After completing my goal, in bold, block letters, I mark the “virtual walk” as DONE. I next took other “virtual walks” to cities, such as Calgary and Edmonton. I repeated the same procedure on these walks. Currently, I am walking across Canada with the same method as when I virtually walked to Lethbridge, Calgary, and Edmonton.
Virtual walking awakened my competitive streak, gave me a feeling of accomplishment, and helped me to learn about geography. When I began virtual walking, I didn’t realize that to get to Lethbridge or Calgary, most people left Medicine Hat on two different highways – Highway no. 1 for Calgary and Highway no. 3 for Lethbridge. Since I didn’t drive, I didn’t need learn different routes to different places. Currently, I am learning where towns and cities are on the map. In short, virtual walking enabled to become more active and physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy. And isn’t that the most important goal?