Last year, we bought our first treadmill. I fell in love with it. Who falls in love with exercise equipment, right? There's a screw lost there somewhere....It was all in an effort to get in better shape but I had no idea what running would do to me.
I remember the first time I ran on this machine. I've run before—on other treadmills even—but this experience was so different. Adele played on my iPod, my sons' hands in colored paint were my focal point, and my New Balance shoes were brand spanking new out-of-the-box. I had a liter of Smart Water within reach and I powered up that sucker, ready for a good workout.
It had been a while since I'd run so I paid careful attention to my body, not pushing myself too fast in an eagerness to get moving. And then I kind of...lost myself. I upped the speed on the machine and the volume on the pod.
This strange feeling coiled up from deep in my gut and I exhaled it on one of the deepest breaths I'd ever taken. It felt like my lungs swelled and grew and a lightness in my chest opened me up wide. Thoughts rushed free from my mind and it was just me, the music, the movement. No complications. No distractions. No worries. I closed my eyes and ran and breathed and let it all go.
I remember reaching for my water and thinking my glasses must have fallen off because my vision was that blind kind of blurry. But when I went to towel off my face I realized my glasses were still on and I had been crying. What? How does a person not know they're crying? How ridiculous is that? But I had. My son's little orange hand filled up my eyes and it hit me that there was so much more to this running thing than just exercise. All of these things I didn't know I felt poured out of me and evaporated—things I still don't even recognize.
In a letter to me before my wedding, my father quoted a line from Disney's Splash Mountain ride: "You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far." A smart man, my father. I've used that wisdom many times in the last 12 years. After that first euphoric run I realized something about trouble. No, you can't run away from it. But you can run through it.
Trouble will find me. Sometimes that trouble will be of my own making and other times it will find me unaware. But I can push myself onward, breathe deep, and run my way through it. I can choose to keep going even when I don't believe I can. I can fix my sight on something better than myself and work my way toward that. Because there's so much more to this running thing. There's so much more ahead of me. And I'm ready for a good workout.
8 comments:
I love that feeling during a good work out. Man, it's been a long time since I've run. It's kinda the same feeling when you get into a groove with your writing. But then again, it's also been a long time since I've worked on my writing. Sigh. I really need to get better about that.
Wow. Look at this. Such great words. I love what you say. And what you don't say.
I'm with Becca. Your writing is so consistently evocative, you leave the message wrapped in mist and hand it to us to discover. Laura, I sincerely hope you are on your way to a completed, publishable manuscript. You are quite possibly the most naturally talented writer I know. If you need a critique partner, or some other motivation to keep things moving, please let me know. You're too gifted to pass this by.
That's so awesome. For some reason this made me think of a line from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. "I wanted to run away that day, but you can't run away from your own feet." Love you, Laura!
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So interesting you would write about this metaphor of exercise. I was just sitting down to do the same thing!
I love your writing. You are a gift.
I'm not sure I've ever experienced that--that euphoria in exercise, but I GET it. I can imagine it. And what a powerful lesson you learned! Thank you for sharing it! Love you!
It sounds so utterly blissful. I wish I loved to run. I see people running all the time on the trails around town and I wish so much that I could do that. But every time I've tried, I've just hated it so much that I never last.
Still, I adore walking. That is my exercise, and I especially love to do it outside where I can soak in nature.
Of course, your post is more than about running (grin), and you're right - running THROUGH whatever it is that is troubling you is a healthy and brilliant solution.
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