When I was a decade younger, waking in the middle of the night and thinking about life would end in Dad having to drive me to the ER at 90 mph on empty back roads, through Mansfield's stoplight that blinked yellow that late, and straight on to the memorial hospital where Mom gave birth to me. The ER was always pretty quiet on week nights, and the doctor was nice, and they'd make the nausea subside, my blood pressure go down, and oxygen levels return to normal just by wrapping me in warm towels. Before dawn I'd be back home in my own bed. I'm not sure who was more dramatic: me, for having a panic attack in the first place just by waking up in the middle of the night, or my parents, for sending me to the ER just because they could see my heart pounding through my shirt, the purple one with the star on it.
Ten years later, it is still kind of a victory to lie in bed in the middle of the night and not panic, to instead feel thankful. Life is hard, but sure, come celebrate. Education, travel, friends - yes college has been full of speed bumps, yes travel has ruined me for the world, and yes, friends in faraway places is killer - but it's all worth it.
That's what I keep telling myself on these long winter nights, stuck at home. I've tasted, and I want more, and I can't have. I sit by the fire until late at night, scrolling through my phone, looking at pictures, but also maps. The app I use for running keeps a record of all my routes, and seeing those red lines etched into places far from the trail in our woods I started running on is almost trippy. One, because I never thought I could be a runner. Two, because I never would have imagined that I'd get the opportunity to log runs in Europe.Sometimes I catch myself thinking, "I never could have imagined that such evil could exist, or life could be so hard." But if I am telling the truth, it goes both ways. I also could never have imagined that life could be so beautiful, so ethereal. And if you can't have one without the other, I'll take both in lieu of gentle ebbs and swells that are nice enough but don't overwhelm me.
I crave feelings. In the Sci-Fi channel version of Lewis Carrol's book, Wonderland's barter economy is upheld not by the value of currency, but bottled feelings. Monotonous, numb, pent-up, normal little feelings - like the Wonderlanders, I don't want that. Give me high or give me low - that feels, and even if the feeling isn't good, feeling a deep feeling feels good.
But I'm a normal human, and I guess I'm not any more bi-polar than most girls my age, so most of the time I'm stuck somewhere in the middle. The middle is where you have to be, after all. We wouldn't get any work done if we constantly felt like throwing a party or driving our car off a cliff. There is work to be done. So much work.
I'm thankful for this year's highs. I'm thankful for the lows because it's either be thankful or be hatin', and I choose thankful. And I'm thankful for the middle ground too. I really don't like the middle ground, but it's here that I learn constancy, here that I remember no matter how much I fail at constancy, God never does. He's been the same this whole freakin time, and will continue on, the same: good.It's here that I heal. Literally. Since it's been so cold, I just sit around with my running app and don't actually run except for once a week, whichever day my weather app says will be warmest. And as a result, my knees are doing a ton better, and my foot is back to normal too. Those injuries had been bothering me for 4 or 5 months, so it's nice to be pain free.
Mhm. Pain free is a nice feeling for my body. But I'm looking forward to logging more runs because I'm craving endorphins. It's a free, good feeling in my brain, one I'm addicted to. Running got me out of a tight spot a year and a half ago, and I still rely on it to keep me out.
I just really like the way it makes me feel, and the miles it takes to get me there are worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment