Went running after dark. No headlamp, just old shoes and a puffy jacket and wireless earbuds playing music by the 1975, over and over again.
Retraced the old route I used to follow every day when I was fifteen. The country road has since been paved, otherwise it’s the same.
It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.
I’m a little surprised at how easy it is to move quickly over the ground, without hurting my bones, without straining my lungs. Doesn’t hurt like it used to. The air is cold – easier to breathe. I suspect that all the walks up the hill to the cemetery in my college town are helping.
A friend started running again in the summer, in the woods near her family overseas. It’s the only time her thoughts arrive in the right order – when she’s running. Something about footsteps and bilateral stimulation and EMDR and the way our eyes have to track back and forth across uneven ground to make sure we don’t stumble and fall.
She told me that running earlier today may or may not have fixed her entire life, so I decided to follow her example.
For me it’s just good to be outside, moving, listening to music. The rumination spirals settle down, imagination shifts towards nicer things. Memories of good moments with people who matter to me.
In those moments I feel safe from the harshness which so often whirls inside my head. I find it easier to trust that the perceptions of me which exist within the minds of other people are safe, too, from that same variety of harshness.
“You are not broken. You are young and you are learning how to live.“
Lay down on the floor of the living room until I get my breath back – dog rests her head on my belly, like a pillow, parents are sitting on the couch watching TV – then afterwards there is a hot shower and a sandwich and a glass of water and a book to read, a comfortable bed, friends still exchanging thoughts, and a cat who wants attention. And there is writing.
Since it’s still November – I am greatful for all of those things.