keep running

until you give up...

I started running around the of middle 2023.

That was the start of a voyage. Because a voyage is what makes a person spew with emotions. Not only is your body turning to jelly but, your mind is screaming, “stop!” You know you have to keep pushing.

Keep pushing.

My first run was in my dad’s workroom on the dusty, forgotten treadmill for 45 minutes. I ran as slow as what feels like walking to me now. I despised sport. I hated, dreaded and loathed it. But I looked into the mirror everyday and I despised my flabby arms and thighs even more. So I ran. My days where walking, working out, running, walking- and I had no time for my social life and academics. As fast as the wind, I lost sight of everything around me. I ran so far I fell in the interminable ocean of lies.

No fuel for my engine, no repairs. That engine would prompt its vessel, me, to tip and turn with all my insides flooding out. I was lost at sea, searching for a golden treasure and chasing to get to the rainbow which was impossible to reach. A scurvy stirred my brittle and my hair to fall in hand-fulls. Infected with a parasite that creeped up my mind, it grasped my arms on strings so I moved like a puppet. Stop the voices!

Running was my escape but I had to stop and breathe.

And so, it took months of more screams of help in an abyss but I got back on my feet and found an island of warmth. Meeting mother Earth, scorched by Father sun but hugged too so I was relived, but everything is temporary. After months of rocking on the vessel that creaked with proud lies, my legs were sea slugs but my head was running in circles.

The Mountain of Fear towered over me. “No one is here. No one understands me. I’m not good enough. I don’t deserve- ” I told myself. For a while, I sat on a dry patch of grass poking at the dead flowers. But slowly, I started crawling up the mountain. Picking up the pace, I walked hundreds of miles. One foot in front of the other, sweat drooling down my cheeks. And then I could run.

But I was slow again. I was weak. No, I pushed. Keep pushing!

That was until my foot gave up on me. I wasn’t even halfway up the mountain yet.

Spiking pain passed through it like lightning. I felt it for weeks. Every step was pure pain. That volcano of thoughts so contained, erupted in me in my small head and out my mouth. Will I never be able to run again? Everything I worked for just buried in the cruel Earth? Why does this world hate me? These words echoed in the cave I sheltered in, bouncing off the walls and coming back to me each time.

Peaking through everyone laughed, even the sun who offered its ‘golden time’ and the Earth so harsh and rugged. I could not stay in that cave for long and soon heaved up rocks and dragged the trees sweating my emotions away in a river that flooded the island. On that water, I danced like a bird to the autumn breeze that slapped me harsh in my face. I danced in the face of the Mountain Of Fear. Every time I fell, I slowly picked myself up. Now the world was silent and it was only me and my head. The flood washed away my thoughts as I exhaled.

Laugh. Laugh in the face of fear I say. “You’re a psychopath,” they say. “You’re not sick,” they say.

Even I don’t know who I am so how do you?

Keep running.

Book recommendation: Read Edgar Allan Poet’s “Black Cat.”

Tell me if you are a runner by commenting! Share this with your friends and family so I know to write posts like this frequently.