Digression

Oddly enough, I can clearly place the moment when the idea that I wasn't a runner became a fixed idea for me.  It was fourth grade.  We were preparing for track and field day.  We had done timed pre-runs for the event, and I had a pretty good time for one of the races – the 800 meter, I think.  So, one of my classmates nominated me to be a team captain, and I was shy and insecure and I refused the nomination.  It was a terrifying, terrible moment for me.  Of course it’s strange, looking back now, that I let it become so big.  But anyway, from that moment on began the insidious, subconscious and self-defeating path that many of us take through our formative years.  We start to put ourselves into categories, start to form beliefs about ourselves, not really stopping to think why we have them, or whether we should push beyond them.   And though running is only a small aspect of that evolution, I can easily see it as a metaphor for a lot of other areas of my life.  I assumed I couldn't, so I didn't. 

On the other hand, it is nice to have parameters for the path you’re going to take.  If you know what you won’t do, it makes it easier to see what you will do.  When there are no boundaries, everything flies open around you, and it’s overwhelming.  The world is a broad, endless grassland, you could start walking in any direction, and end up anywhere.  It’s your choice.  It’s paralyzing.  There’s scientific proof, too.  There’s such a thing as decision fatigue, where when you constantly have to make too many decisions, your analytical process gets more and more skewed.  It seems our brains were wired for us to stick to the easiest path, not think too hard about other choices.  To let the beliefs you internalize as you grow up narrow the broad field you begin with into a straight track, without too many turns.  Something easy, if a little mundane, to walk along.  Although there are still disasters and dissatisfaction along the path, it feels so much safer than the alternative.  And yet, sometimes you wonder what happened to the open grassland.  Did it cease to exist when you stopped looking at it, or is it still out there, waiting?

So, as I’ve gotten older, and felt the pull of wide open around me, I have started to really think about what I want my life to be.  I’m starting to realize it could really be anything.  I just need to have the knowledge, and the faith, and the imagination to really understand what it is that I want.  I now know it doesn’t have to be what I thought was prescribed for me, but then, what should it become?   That’s the major work of life, I suppose.  And I have discovered that I need to learn to listen to my gut, the thing deeper down than my brain, the thing that hasn’t been molded by the insecurities, doubts, and minor tragedies that my brain likes to grab onto.   The gut is pretty hard to hear, because my brain can be so loud.  But I catch pieces of it now and again, like a radio station coming in and out of range.

And my gut tells me I need to run, that I should be a runner.  So that’s what I’m going to do.