June 10, 2010

Morning Runs

I did not want to go running this morning. I didn't want to go so badly, that I was even procrastinating last night. I stayed up way too late watching horrible television that I was barely interested in. And then when I tired of that, I played about a dozen games of spider solitaire. I love to read and there's this book that I haven't been able to put down lately, and I didn't touch it last night because reading late at night makes me want to go to sleep. That's how badly I didn't want to go running this morning. But, I did. After a lot of grumbling.

It started out slow, as most of my runs do. I fiddled with my iPod, trying to find that perfect song that would try to get me out of my mental funk. I thought about ex boyfriends, trying to hash up some old anger that would fuel my steps into a faster pace. I stared in shop windows, willing myself to run longer so that I could look like all of the plastic mannequins. And then somewhere between all of the forcing, something just clicked. My pace came to me and my ex boyfriend thoughts disappeared (thank god) and I eased into a happy rhythm and let myself just enjoy the run. Four miles later, I came home happy. And that's really the best thing about running, you know? Discovering you don't run for a certain person or a certain reason; you run because you can.
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Welcome to Head Over Heels!

Like many 20-something women, I woke up one morning exasperated. It seemed like every day I would find a new passion, a new dream, and get excited about yet another project, just to find that they would all crash and burn. I wanted something that I could control and that would be all mine.

Because our 20s are a time of exploration and discovery, it's very hard to find that path that directs us exactly to our dreams, especially because our dreams have the habit of evolving overnight. I had worn myself into a tizzy of exhaustion, disappointment, and an overwhelming sense of having no control over my own life. And that's when I went for that first run.

Two minutes later, I arrived back at my apartment steps, panting. As long and as torturous as those two minutes felt, they also gave me a sense of liberation, a feeling that had been severely lacking in my life. The next day, pathetically still sore, I again put on my sneakers. Three minutes, yes! This routine was repeated daily throughout the summer and now, I'm a half-marathoner! My ultimate goal, a marathon, still looms in the distant future, but the even bigger goal is one I can actively work on every day: learning to gain control over my own life and learning to fall in love with myself one step at a time.