Day 91 – 0 miles – 1,192 total

Woke up and Amy made an awesome breakfast for us. They had to go to a tee ball game and I went ahead and headed towards the event in Eddystone, PA. I got there and said hello to people I knew and set the table up for Freedom to Grow. This may seem silly but I love the feeling of having a legitimate business when I go to these events. I used to go and just had a bunch of random flyers and pictures but now I have a well put together event table setup with good information and merchandise. It’s a little thing but it feels like a big deal to me.

I got everything set up while talking to old friends and then Stick and Jen came. They were telling me the stories from the concert and I could tell they had a great time. I am really happy that Stick was able to go to that. He manned the table while I went around and did a sweep to mingle with the other vendors and exchange info. Get the networking stuff done. Then we both stood at the table as the waves of people came through.

It was a great thing that there were two of us because there were swarms of people. It was really fun though. Some people knew about us from facebook and from me going to this event last year. They made us feel good by showing us love and wanting pictures. It was really fun. I was so happy to meet everyone and make face to face greetings with people from the facebook world.

It was emotional too as most people has stories of heart ache and loss due to a drug overdose. I cried at least 10 times.

The big walk started and we gathered together to do the one mile awareness walk. The media reported that there was 10,000 people there. We walked and it was really powerful. We had friends to walk. I couldn’t believe how many people were there.

We got back to the big field where the event was and people gathered around the stage for speakers and raffle giveaways. I was one of five speakers. The first was a 15 year old girl who lost her mother. She was so brave and did a great job. I know for a fact that she touched the hearts of many other children there. I didn’t know her but I was really proud of her.

The next two were young women in recovery. It was so awesome to hear their stories of success of managing their disease of addiction. I was next.

I had nothing prepared and had no clue what I was about to say. I was introduced and then got up there and just said what came to mind. It took everything I had but I felt like I did a good job for being on the fly. People clapped instead of throwing things at me so i’ll take that as a good sign haha.

I got down and headed back to the Freedom to Grow table and did some more talking to people. Many people came up to talk about the sensative things that I talked about in my speech. That made me happy and sad at the same time. Tears were coming out with almost everyone I was talking too. Brittany would be really proud of me today.

The event closed out and we were the last table to leave. We were still talking to people as the rest of the show was breaking down. We didn’t care. It did get to a point where we needed to go though. We packed up and said goodbye to everyone. We went and loaded up the car and got in.

As soon as the doors closed I realized how tired I was. I wanted to just find a hotel and sleep but KT offered for us to stay at his house which was free and also a great location for us to stop at. It was 2 hours away though. I drove for a while but had to stop at a Wendy’s to get some food and a Coke. I needed fuel. I felt better after that.

We made it to KT’s and he was making scrapple, egg, and cheese sandwiches for us. And bacon. He also had some beer for everyone. Stick and I had a few with the friends who were over and we gathered around a big bonfire. They have chickens and cats so Domino was loving life too. It was a great way to decompress from such an emotional day. No one had more than 3 beers. It was a very calm evening and I had a great time with like-minded people. I wasn’t the first but I didn’t stay up as late as everyone else. I went to a room with a bed that they made for me and slept really well.

A very heavy day. I was honored to be able to go and I was proud of myself for the growth I’ve experienced since last year.