500 Miles

As someone who has to reluctantly hold up their hands and say they are agoraphobic I took great pride from an email I received the other week. My world remains very restricted by panic. I find I am able to stay out longer, go further and stay out for longer. There is though something I have been missing along the way that has recently come to my attention. There is a walk I want to do. I mapped it. Its a two mile round trip. Should do it, I thought. Still have not done it.

In preperation I went in a different more comfortable direction to walk a mile from home an then back. As I got as far as I could I turned and started to head back looking at my phone. I use an App named "MapMyWalk" to record all the walks I do. I was shocked to find I had gone less than half a mile. Shocked because I have been walking usually 1.5 to 2 miles per walk. And so I tried again and again and every time its just not happening. Half a mile seems to be as far as I can force myself from home. This despite my biggest walk this year being over 4 miles and lots of walks being over 2 miles. I have to address that.

The email though was comforting. It was from the app and it was to tell me I had walked 500 miles this year. 500 miles. Surely that aint bad for an agoraphobic. Surely that would convince anyone who don't think I am trying that I am- appears not. I mean I dont have to go out. I could stay in doors and noone would be any the wiser. I don't have to do it and yet in the quest to get back to normality I have pushed myself out for 500 miles. Am I wrong to thing that is good going?

In perspective this, probably adversely healthy obsession I have, is in comparison to previous years over a complete year with the reminder we are not at the halfway stage yet....

2009 244 miles
2010 324 miles
2011 155 miles
2012 370 miles
2014 928 miles

OK. You can see last year I made a massive leap. Its weird looking at 2011. So poor and yet I was not trying any less than now and that is the truth. I have never let up and yet that now looks a pathetic total and it is. But I remember clearly that I was scared at that time I was going backwards. I feared the following year would be worse and I was heading for a point where I would not be able to go out at all- genuinely. Now you can see its coming together but again I say its not from any more effort, it just is.

I get the feeling in the real world that there are people thinking I don't try or at least don't try hard enough. I don't know why. Does anyone thing I would want to live like this by choice? I don't.

What do I want? In all honesty I'd love to just bugger off and live the Kerouac style road trip. Just wonder and keep going. That would be bliss. That is what I would love. If only I could fit those 500 miles into a few weeks I would do well but the reality is half a mile is as far as I can go.