How I came to cycle the world
It's a long story, so I hope you have time!
In 1996 I was number 1 in the insurance company I worked for, and to stay there I worked about 90 hours upwards a week. I was a Client Service Representative and would call on different families to sell insurance. Over the 3.5 years I looked after about 5,500 families. I loved my job meeting so many people.
Working all those hours though eventually caught up with me and I had several warnings from my body to slow down but I couldn't, I had a very expensive divorce to pay for and I was trying to re-build a home again after loosing everything to my husband. There were times I worked from 7am until 2 or 3am the next morning.
One morning I jumped into my car to go to work and tried to put the clutch down. Nothing. I tried lifting my legs with my arms but then found I couldn't move them either. I thought I had had a stroke. So, there I was, stuck in my car waiting for help. Eventually my neighbor found me and dragged me up into my apartment.
It would take me about 20 minutes to make a cup of tea. I would think what do I need? Cup, ok, where are the cups? What's next, water? Where do I get water? My brain was so burnt out I could hardly manage the simplest things.
At its worst I was asleep about 20 hours a day, I would get up, eat, bath, and go back to bed. I wasn't alive, I existed. I did not care if I fell asleep and never woke up. I could barely talk to friends as what I wanted to say in my head simply wouldn't come out of my mouth; it was just nonsense, although some would say nothing's changed there! I was just too tired to try and hold a conversation. If I read it was the same, like trying to read a foreign language. I was also in a lot of pain. I had severe pins and needles in my fingers and toes which would go on for hours. My joints really hurt, my balance would go and I would stagger into things. I had no co-ordination, I developed blisters on my tongue making it really painful to talk, which is to name but a few. I couldn't leave my apartment as I couldn't make it down the stairs so the only thing I had left to communicate was the telephone and now I couldn't even talk! I had never felt so lonely in my life. I lived in a pigsty most of the time as I didn't have the energy to do even the most basic things like housework.
This went on for about 3.5 years
The doctors couldn't tell me what was wrong with me and I thought if I carried on the way I was going I would end up in a wheelchair or just shrivel up and die and to be honest at the time that would have been a relief. My apartment overlooked a beach and I remember one day staring down at all the couples walking along the sand thinking, I wish I could just do something even that simple, how much we take for granted until it's taken away from us! It was then I sat on the couch and cried and cried like I have never cried in my life. I thought, is this it, it this my life? I thought, what if I was going to die, how sad my life had been and I would met god and say to him "what was that, a joke?" I thought back over the last few years and the stress that had made me ill in the first place. Within the space of about 7 months I had suffered redundancy, a miscarriage, divorce, cancer, I'd lost my home and was in severe financial difficulties and was ill. I promised him that if I got well, I would live, I mean really live and try and make a difference. I didn't know how, but I would.
Now there's impermanence!!!!
Eventually, I slowly stopped thinking about dying and thought, what if I live? What if one day I am in my 80s and I have to live in a body I have no control over again? How would I feel about my life then if I felt so bad about it now? I knew I couldn't live with the idea of sitting in nursing home one day thinking, 'If only." People often ask me now, "Aren't you afraid?" I tell them, that thought scared me far more than anything out here.
I read a book around that time about a girl who had cycled trips around the world. I thought, I can ride a bike, I can do that! A bit bold as I could just about manage to walk across my living room by then. On one of my better days I went out for dinner with a friend of mine, Pat. I said to her, "Pat, I've decided what I'm going to do with the next few years of my life that should keep me out of mischief. I'm going to cycle around the world!" Pat nearly choked on her coffee and reminded me:
"Karen, you're ill, you haven't worked in over 3 years, the doctors don't know what's wrong with you, you are in $7,500 of debt and best all, you don't even own a bike!!" I could almost hear her thinking, take a Valium dear.
I simply replied, "Pat, you don't know me very well do you?" Practical is my least favorite word!
Of course, there were days when I thought, don't be silly, you can't do that but the more I tried to push it to the back of my mind the more it nagged at me until it almost became an obsession. I cut out a picture of my dream bike and stuck in on my fridge, every time I looked at it I thought, one day, one day.
Eventually I had to see the doctor from Social Security as they wanted to make sure I wasn't pulling a fast one. There are lots of people who still don't believe ME really exists, they think it's an excuse to be lazy. I say to them, "Who in their right mind is going to give up a job with good wages that they enjoy to exist on welfare?" The doctor told me"Has nobody told you you have ME?" Once I had a name for what I had I felt better,, at last someone who believed that it wasn't all in my head! I was offered Valium but said "No thanks," I was already a zombie, like I needed to feel worse! On one very bad day I was staggering along clinging to a store window to hold myself up when an elderly lady overtook me on her Zimmeframe.
I took myself off to a nutritionist who prescribed me a whole truck load of vitamins and minerals and eventually, ever so slowly, I began to feel better and was able to hold down a part time job. Then a full time job working in a factory packing contact lenses. It was the most depressing of jobs. After being out all day when I'd worked in insurance and meeting so many people I hated being stuck in the roof of factory, just a robot without a personality. I found another job for an insurance company where again I was stripped of my personality and given a script to read to clients, I hated that too, I was me and I was proud of it, I refused to change for anyone!
I was still not well but thoughts of cycling around the world never went away and during my time stuck in the factory it was the only thing that kept me sane. I knew I had to find a better paid job but what? The only thing I had ever been good at was selling insurance and I knew that if I went back there it probably would kill me! I had to get something on my resume, I had left school at just 15 and had taken no exams so I decided the only thing to do was put myself through night school to learn how to use a keyboard and computers.
Because my brain was still so burnt out and I had trouble remembering anything, I had to take the same lesson several times a week and practice as much as I could before what I was trying to learn sank in. Over the space of about 18 months I took 5 exams and got a distinction in all of them. My hard work paid off when I got a job in an insurance company, office hours and a great boss who would regularly spoil us all by going out and buying us all ice-creams on hot days.
I loved my job and would have been happy to stay there but still my obsession to cycle the word wouldn't go away. Jersey too had become spoilt by greed and I found a lot of the people there were just interested in possessions and aesthetics, not my cup of tea at all. Around the time I had just started my new job I saw Helen a friend of mine who I hadn't seen in the longest time due to my illness. I asked after her husband, Gary, who I was also friends with. Helen told me Gary was ill with cancer and had not long to live. I was so shocked. It was as if time had stood still for me when I'd been ill but now almost 4 years had passed. Gary died about 3 weeks later just before his 38th birthday. I remember sitting at his funeral thinking what am I waiting for? why am I still only thinking of doing this trip? Was I waiting to be in there, 'till it was too late? Most of us assume we are going to live to be old and put off so much 'till tomorrow. Having worked in insurance and dealing with death claims I had seen so many people die young and too many just weeks either side of retirement.
The following day I ordered my dream bike, an Orbit Romany Expedition, at 4 times more than I had ever paid for a car now I would have to go! I looked at a calendar and set a date, I knew if I didn't I might always be putting it off. Date set for the 27th August 2001 I had a little over a year to buy the rest of my gear and plan a route.
Some of you must be wondering why by bike? Well, I have 2 degenerating discs in my spine and I cannot think of anything much more miserable than lugging a backpack around and being squashed on a bus with a lot of spoilt tourist going from city to city and not seeing the real country or the real people. I wanted to go at my own pace and meet people I wouldn't otherwise meet, see wildlife and breath fresh air. (Well, there's no fresh air in India I'll admit). I read a great quote once which went something like"I have yet to find a way of seeing less of the world than by car or train."
Ok, so there I am running around for a year trying to get organized for something I had never done before in my life. I mean, I hadn't even ridden a bike since I was 18, what on earth was I taking on? I never wondered why or if I could do it or not, you see, I'm a stubborn bugger and once I set my mind on something there is very little that will stop me. As departure day got closer I handed in my notice at work and mostly got support. Mark, one of the financial advisors came to me and said,"I hear you going to cycle around the world. So, you'll still be sitting on your arse all day so nothings's changed there then!" Good old Mark!
So, departure day arrived and I felt sick and excited at the same time. Cycling down to the harbour to catch the boat to France I wondered where the journey would lead me and who I would meet, little did I know!
After 2 years , 13 countries and 15,000km ( I am slow due to my ME and having to stop and work) I can look back now and honestly say I'm glad I was ill. It made me take a good look at my life and question where I was going and the illness and everything else I suffered had been like an apprenticeship to train me for this. I think, if I can get through that lot this should be a piece of cake!
Read my old diaries (coming soon) to see what happened to me along the way!