gwennefarrell

My apologies that I didn’t post on Saturday but things were a bit hectic. We were preparing for our trip to Playa del Carmen and had a lot to do. Fortunately a neighbour had offered to take us to the airport for 5am on the 28th. Unfortunately we found out the plane was delayed for an hour, and then another 1/2 hour and then another 20 minutes. This was due to far too many planes arriving at the Cancun airport. While we had to cancel our food delivery, we were able to keep our friend who was picking going to be waiting for us up to date so he didn’t have to wait at the airport for too long.

When I was working I traveled a lot. Seriously, I mean I flew minimum 75k miles each year. I was always in the elite category which often meant I got awesome upgrades. But the thing is, I hated flying mainly due to turbulence which I am convinced would crash the plane. I had a co-worker one time try to explain to me what turbulence was as she used to be a flight attendant. The problem with that is, when you have flying anxiety rationale information does not help you in any way.

I have to say as I don’t fly anywhere near as much now it seems to have cause my anxiety to signicantly increase. I literally start shaking when the plane bumps even a little. While my husband will do things like hold my hand, nothing seemed to alleviate my anxiety. But now, I have found a relief.

The first thing I did was find some awesome stats on turbulence. If you know me you also know I am a numbers person. Things like statisics actually give me comfort. So here are some I now focus on, in the history of flying only 60 people have ever been injured because of turbulence. Even I am hesitant to calculate how many people have ever actually flown and what percentage have been injure but I know it is an exponentially insiginficant amount. The other thing I do (and it is each time I fly and hit turbulence) is look up what you can do to relieve the anxiety. A few things that work well for me are finding a calming mantra such as ‘I am safe and secure’ or ‘the plane doesn’t know it’s turbulent, it just knows how to fly’ (the latter is a quote from a pilot who told us that on an extremely turbulent flight from Toronto to Vancouver). I also do some deep breathing and focus on pressing my feet against the floow which makes things more stable.

There is nothing wrong with having anxiety flying, apparently 40% of flyers are anxious when there is turbulence. The important thing is to find something that helps calm that anxiety. I don’t think I will ever stop being a nervous flyer, I think I will just successfully find some things to deal with the anxiety.

This won’t be a long post but it will be heartfelt. This is our 2nd Christmas without our little brother but it’s ok. It’s ok because last night I got to talk to a really good friend who told me her and her daughter have read about my struggles on FaceBook. She said everytime they saw my comments about my brother they would talk about their own struggles with grief. She told me how happy she was that I was so open about talking about it. She also reminded me how much her and her daughter had loved my brother, he was family to them.

Yeah, that sounds a bit maudlin for Christmas but you what, it actually isn’t. Yes, I wish he was here, yes I miss him but for some reason I am now embracing just having memories of him. More importantly, I just really appreciate those that are here with me.

And so on this Christmas Day I thank all of you for being a part of my life. I truly look forward to the memories we will all make together over the coming years. By kind to one another, look after one another and in general just be a good person.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

My usual instructor at my fitness classes is away on vacation. She’s been instructing 4 of the 5 classes that I take during the week and so I am pretty used to the structure. The one she doesn’t instruct is on Thursdays when we do a strength class with a different instructor and that class is usually pretty brutal. So, guess who did the classes Wed/Thur/Fri this week? Yep, the Thursday instructor. Let me just say, three consecutive days of her classes just about killed me. Fortunately there are breaks this week because of the holidays and I am so grateful I don’t have to put myself through that again.

I was looking at memories on Facebook today and realized normally this time of year I post some reflections of things I appreciate from the outgoing year. In looking back I didn’t post last year which would have been due to struggling through the my 1st Christmas without my little brother. I guess that is understandable but I decided I needed to get back into reflecting the good things from 2025.

So what do I appreciate from this year? As always my husband, sister and all of our pets. But I also appreciate the awesome neighbourhood that we live in. And, our friends whether that be our coffee group or those we met through our walking club (trust me those ladies are no longer a volunteer gig, we are all really close now). But I also have friends that I have met through work, the labour movement and volunteering. Two of my work friends I have known for more than 35 years and I was so happy we got to get together for lunch this past week.

I am also really appreciative of the volunteer groups I am involved with. Imagine having the privilege of making a difference in the lives of others. The seniors’ resource centre where I do things such as the tax clinic, senior walking group (see comments above about that group) and facilitating the caregiver support group makes me proud of my volunteer work. But perhaps most of all, Elderdogs Canada without whom many seniors would not be able to keeep their dogs and when those seniors no longer can safely care for their dogs I get to help find the dogs a perfect new home. Just today I received an amazing text thanking me for finding a temporary foster for a dog whose owner was being placed in hospice (she passed yesterday but a relative is keeping the dog). Receiving a message like that makes the work I do so worth it.

Typing this I see that I do have a lot to appreciate and I am glad I took the time to reflect on this past year. I’m hoping I have just as much to appreciate next year.

I’ve been wearing my flashing reflective vest for weeks now but all of a sudden this past week everyone seem to be noticing it. I wear it on mornings where I am walking extremely early and I know the walk won’t finish before the sun comes up. I’ve had people stop me so that they can look at it (it flashes both front and back), where I got it and to tell me how smart I was to be wearing. I’m hoping some of these people decide to get one as well as it is just one more way to keep ourselves safe.

Yesterday in southern BC we had an atmospheric river. If you have never heard of it it means an unbelievable amount of rain pretty much each hour. But I was determined, I wanted to get in 30 km outdoor walking yesterday. And so I came up with a plan in which I would walk in certain increments, come home to rest and change into dry clothes if necessary and grab some protein to eat. The 2nd 10 km walk would be done while on my phone for a Zoom meeting and I would be splitting the final 2 5 km walks by doing a Zoom meeting on my laptop. I thought it was a good plan and mentally prepared myself for it.

I want to be clear, it was terrible! Within 2 blocks of home I was on a street that had large puddles so when cars came by I was sprayed with water. That meant within about 5 minutes of walking I was already soaked. I got down to the street that takes me to the promenade and there were places along the sidewalk that had massive puddles that you could only navigate by walking through them. The west side of the promenade was no better. Yes, I walked most of that 10 km with soaking wet feet.

After that 1st 10 km I rushed to change into dry clothes, shoes and socks. I then put my clothes in the dryer then turned on the gas fireplace and put my shoes and orthotics in front of the heat in hopes that they would be dry in time for the next shift. I quickly gobbled down a low sugar protein bar and headed out for the 2nd 10 km walk but this time I had to log onto the Zoom meeting which I worried would not keep me engaged during the walk but it actually did. Needless to say when I got home from that walk it was the same process.

Then out for a 5 km walk. This time my husband gave me his rain jacket as my waterproof jacket was soaked through (you can’t imagine the amount of water it had been pelted with at this point). However, for this walk the rain was just teeming from the sky making it difficult to even see. Rivers were running down the sidewalks so again soaking wet feet. By time I was home I was again wet through so yet another changes of clothes and footwear. I did a quick Zoom meeting and then back out for that last 5 km brining me to a total of 30 km in the rain

Let me assure you, 30 km is hard in a day but it is beyond difficult in this type of weather. Many suggested I give myself a break and either use the treadmill (not an option as this is an outdoor walking challenge) or cut back on the amount of walking. I refused to do those things, I was determined to keep myself on track and complete my 30 km for the day and I did. I will admit, I was exhausted by the end of it to the point that I almost didn’t attend a Christmas dinner event but I sucked it up and went.

Where does that leave me? Well, my goal was 300 km for the month by tomorrow. I scaled back to only 20 km today and right now I am sitting at 304.8 km and since I am going on an outdoor excursion this afternoon I’m pretty sure I will be well over 305 km by the end of the day.

Nope, even that atmospheric river couldn’t stop me.

Yesterday I went to my final Grief Through Creativity session and I must say these have been far more helpful than I had anticipated. I really like that they have focused more on the impact of the memories and how to carry them forward in a healthy manner. This session involved writing out messages to your loved one, reading them out loud (if comfortable doing so) then lighting them on fire and placing them in the bucket. The point of this was helping those constant messages get out of your head and out in the open. By time we were done all of us were in tears but it was so cathartic. Afterwards I made a memory jar for my brother that anyone can just drop in a memory of him.

I am down to the last few days of my challenge of walking 300 km by December 12th. I admit yesterday one of the messages I wrote was that I was doing this fundraising challenge for my brother because that is why I am pushing myself like this. I want to think he is looking down on me and being proud. I explained yesterday that I would like it so that no person as young as 42 ever has a heart attack because that is what happened to him. As I state on my fundraising page, he had his first heart attack at 42 and his 3rd and final one at 57. One day I truly hope heart attacks don’t exist.

So, technically 3 days left and even if the horrible rainy weather impacts tomorrow I still know I am going to make my goal. As a matter of fact, I am at day 9 and I have already walked 250 km. There were 3 days last week that I kicked it up to 30 km a day and the past 2 days I have done the same. The goal is 30 km tomorrow then 20 km on Thursday then the crazy daily walking will be done. Then, I am on to serious pressure nagging all my friends who knew my brother to do their bit and get me to my fundraising goal. As I’ve got until December 31st I’m pretty sure I can do it. Oh, and the walking won’t stop, it will just be scaled back to about 15 km/day.

As I near the finish line for the walking goal I realize it has really been a good thing to do because I was doing it for my brother. Because of that I don’t even think about how much I have walked but rather how if he was here he would have on his lopsided grin telling me that I am f%*king insane all the while being proud of me for doing it.

I am absolutely sure Amazon loves this time of year. I admit, I am doing most of my shopping through them and the delivery van arrives pretty much every day. The challenge is that my husband uses my Amazon account so I know what he is getting me for Christmas. Ok, that kind of takes the fun out of it but at least I can make sure I am getting the things I want.

So the weather has decided that it is not going to cooperate with me walking 30km/day and has decided to rain today and for the next several days. I have a few options here, don’t do the walks (oh, like that is going to happen), use the dreaded treadmill (no way will I use that 6 hours each day) or suck it up and figure out how to walk in the pouring rain. I have chosen the latter.

Today it was really raining 2 of my 3 walks (still raining on the 3rd walk just not as much). It was time to dress strategically so that I could stay as dry as possible. While I thought I had mastered it, it didn’t quite work out as planned. For the 1st walk since it was also colder out I wore my leggings cover by sweatpants, a long sleeved t-shirt and my heavy rain slicker. I also added a ball cap because the hood on the rain slicker still allows a lot of rain to hit my eyes. Off I went thinking all was ok and really it wasn’t that bad except 2 hours of walking in the pouring rain stuff is going to get wet.

For the 2nd walk I had to get rid of the long sleeved t-shirt as it was wet and I switched out to my lighter rain jacket. I also had to switch out the ball cap as it was pretty soaked through. I added a sweat shirt and off I went again, By time that walk was done both the sweatpants and shirt were wet but I decided I wasn’t changing them out as I knew I would just be getting another set wet and really they weren’t horribly soaked. I did, however, have to change my socks to dry ones

I got home from the 3rd walk and put the ball cap, neck gaitor and my shoes in front of the gas fireplace. Yes, even though the rain was much lighter so much of what I was wearing was already wet from previous walks. Now I am washing everything in order to be able to do it all over again tomorrow. I did realize at the end of this walk that I can do wet as long as it isn’t cold and vice versa. I also now have no expectation of keeping completely dry.

The rain is not going to stop me, I am going to finish this challenge.