Tuesday evening I sat on the bench in my dad’s entryway to put on my running shoes to go for a run. As I sat there a few memories hit me. I’m pretty open about how I’m not really a runner (yet). I haven’t been very athletic since I hit puberty and suddenly athletics were significantly more challenging for me than they were before.
But I did run. Infrequently. As I laced up my shoes I remembered one of the first times that I did the same thing about 10 years ago. I ran for a different reason then. I ran because I was angry and didn’t know how else to deal with my anger. My parents’ divorce was becoming more imminent. I took to the back country roads to manage the boiling blood pulsing through my hormone-filled veins.
As I started walking up the road I thought of the last time I had ran this road. It was 5 years ago and I ran for a different reason. This time I had just returned home after University. I was living with my dad because of that time in job transition and I was isolated from city life and all the friends that had become so dear to me. Slowly I realized that my world was turning gray and I had to pretend to have emotions or feel anything, really.
That year I ran to restore my mental health that was slipsliding deeper in deeper into a cave of nothingness. I would run that country road until I reached the top of the hill where I was finally out of the valley and into cell phone service AKA life! and call #b or Amanda, who were my reward for getting exercise that I didn’t really care about but knew I needed (they say exercise is good for your mental health.).
It was a good moment looking back on those hard things and see how I’ve come out of them. 5 years changes a lot, 5 more years, even more. While I still struggle to say I’m a runner, maybe deep down I am? The only ways I knew how to face those crappy days head on was to run away.
Even if Running and I are still just getting to know each other, our first encounters have been very helpful!
