Saturday, April 25, 2009

Relay for Life

Last night at about 6pm I packed up my backpack with a sleeping bag, candy, swimsuit, and my cape and headed over to my friend Kristen's apartment. I also brought a homemade chocolate cake I had made up the night before. From Kristen's we drove to the Student Rec Center on campus to participate in a 12 hour Relay for Life event. Relay for Life is an American Cancer Society sponsored fundraising event for cancer research. Teams spend a couple of months fundraising and then we walk around the track for a 12 hours. The only requirement is that each time has at least one person on the track at all times. Our team was the largest with 24 members so we had a pretty easy time meeting that goal. Our Relay for Life event at CSU had about 40 teams, over 400 participants and we raised over $25,000 dollars! It was an awesome experience and I had so much fun. I stayed the whole night, some people came in shifts, but I did not walk the whole time! I walked for about three hours to start out and then for another hour or so over the rest of the night. We closed up at 8 am this morning with a lot less energy than we had the night before.
I decided to join my friend's Relay for Life team in memory of my cousin, Andy Bouwens, who lost his fight to cancer three years ago. It was uplifting to see such a wide array of people coming together for one cause and work extremely hard to support research for the cure for cancer. When Andy was battling cancer I found myself realizing the importance of living for today. Recently I had forgotten that but my Relay for Life event refreshed my belief in living in the moment. After listening to some of the survivor stories last night, you realize that you never know what direction life might take and how important it is to live in the moment and not so much for tomorrow. You can miss a lot of things that go on around you if you get to focused on the future. I am thankful for all that I have, frustrated by the stuff I have been going through, but I am going to live day by day and take pleasure in the small things. It can be hard to accept you don't have control on a lot of things but once you do you can start really living.
The rest of my Saturday was spent laying around, watching movies and doing some homework. It was nice to relax but I also missed home a lot today. Only 19 more days though, so I know I can make it. Anyways, I just wanted to share my unique experience for this week.



Note to self: Embrace this moment and each moment after.

1 comment:

  1. Am I the only one impressed by the thought of you carrying a cake on a bicycle?!

    ReplyDelete