How long can I go…How far can this take me?
Not sure who created this image, but love it and perfect complement to the story…
Got on a tangent writing tonight. This is what popped out. (It’s not about me, just an idea that sprang to life…and so I ran with it.
This is a story of a pretty enough girl (one you’d remember…but not be entirely sure why) who fell in love with running. Head over heals she was, literally – tumbling down a steep incline after a heartbreaking fight and a wild urge to put as much speed into her body as a body can find.
She was moving at mach 5; she was a blur of spinning legs (but with a strangely quiet mind) as she pass the point of control and shifted into what could only be called a rolling dive.
She got up, many minutes later…exhausted, free, feeling calm and certain: Running would be her life.
Some lives are like that. With sharp swerves that seem irrational and lead down long paths. It isn’t rational. It’s the gut telling your brain to just give up all that rattling and behave. Course the “gut” is different for everyone.
For our girl, running felt good. In a few weeks her body was much, much stronger. She was a leaner, fiercer slice. Suddenly limits were negotiable…she knew she could go farther.
She stopped working in front of a computer and quit her job. Instead the runner chased down a part-time gig writing stories for kids and copy for magazines. It opened up time and freed up her breath. It seemed like she’d been holding less oxygen for a very long time.
Less money was more life.
It was a fair trade.
Nearly unnoticed as she ran and ran…and ran.
She loved the taste it put in her mouth, this sense of distance, of body in motion, the tang of plants in bloom and pavement in the sun, of saliva that’s become a memory as it’s processed for fuel. Onward for miles and miles, she hit one coast than another.
Pavement was her lover, trails were her bride.
The Runner couldn’t get enough of the sound of her own metronome: keeping time in footfalls. Gauging life in open spaces and the steady pace of her heart beating.
It was her gift, that long stride…and it was almost her undoing.
That’s the way with many passionate love affairs.
They can burn so bright they risk charring us to cinders…
Leaving us alone in the darkness, because we have forsaken all other lights.
At some point she realized she’d made space and movement her only companions. They were beautiful, tis true, but terrible when it came to conversation. They never complained, but never offered advice or warm embrace. She was running…pushing….always throwing herself at the next horizon.
And every place she found, she stood alone.
The change snuck up on her like a long hill.
Open spaces felt more empty than expansive.
Trails somehow sat too quiet.
No matter how fast she ran she couldn’t outpace the truth.
It wasn’t enough, she realized, this new, fast life.
She ran farther and harder till she thought she might die.
“Distance isn’t the answer.” her heart said in reply.
So, worn and weary, she hunted others hungry for less boundaries and a full throttle life.
It was hard at first. Sharing her precious space and letting others inside, but in a little time she found many things were better shared. She realized that footfalls sound better when magnified. It was simple math that slowly shifted her path…
You see, the distance in life passes and the miles fly by when they’re built on stories and laughter not just vistas and open sky.
So, our little pretty runner…
She fell down. She got back up.
She fell in love and she grew up.
She’s still running. Never you mind.
But now she makes space
for friends, music, and the occasional glass of wine.