Runner Insight

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There are certain enduring events that will always stay with us. We may not remember the exact year or day of the week or even the date, but we remember what we were doing on those specific days when we first heard about the event because of the shock factor and because it is a part of our personal and universal consciousness:

Like when John Lennon was shot

And when Mount St Helens erupted (if you lived in the northwest U.S.).

And when Princess Diana died. 

Or the space shuttle Challenger exploded. 

And the most memorable is obviously 9/11.

That day started out for me like most any other day. It was my day off, and it was a beautiful early fall/late summer day. I got up, planning to go for a long run. As I was getting dressed, I noticed my clock flashing, so I turned on the television to check the time.  I don’t usually watch TV until later in the evening, so the fact that I had turned it on to see the time was, well, obviously timely.

When the television first came on, I saw tall, mangled buildings that looked to be on fire.  I was just staring, not really absorbing or understanding what it was that had happened, other than that it was simply horrifying. Eventually I read across the bottom of the screen a description of what was going on, or what they knew so far, anyway. Then a friend called to tell me what had happened.

I just felt sick.  Just like most of the world, my heart ached, literally ached.  Like a dark and heavy shroud, a feeling of fear, combined with uneasiness and dread, enveloped me. 

My instinct was to cancel my run and stay inside, where it felt like it might be relatively safe, and certainly a little more emotionally secure - to keep watching the TV and see what they said. Like maybe somehow there would be more definition or explanation of what this crazy, jumbled, buildings falling, people dying, smoke-filled insanity was about, or why it had happened, or what the hell was going on, anyway. Even though it was something that happened on the other side of the country, it penetrated sharply into my core, like letting all the air out of me, and left me in this bizarre emotional fog. It affected me physically, making me weak, a little dizzy, and unstable on my feet.

Something inside told me to go for that run anyway, even though there was a heaviness in my gut, a fog in my head, and instability in my step. I couldn’t tell you what it was, maybe disbelief, or maybe an all too genuine belief with an urgent need for some kind of normalcy, maybe something else entirely. I don’t know what it was, but something made me go. I guess subconsciously I knew it wouldn’t be healthy to keep sitting there and absorbing it like a sponge, the incomprehensible being replayed over and over again on the TV.

As I ran, at first it was a little disjointed and unsure – like I wasn’t really me, or at least not my normal me. It was very heavy, but not a physical heaviness, more of an emotional weight. I know I keep saying “heavy” but there was an actual feeling of oppressive substance on that day. For the first mile or more of my run, every breath was a struggle; again, not so much physically but emotionally, like an exhale of anguish or dissipation of ache.

About half way into the run, I started to feel a little better. I’m sure it helped my spirit that it was a beautiful day, although the glowing impact of the sun and the sky and the leaves was subdued by the circumstances. The repetition and the percussion of my body connecting with the path, it was grounding me. It’s like it took some of the grief and channeled it into a little bit of perspective. Made the fear and pain dissipate into the first awkward stages of healing….

It helped the overwhelming-ness of it all to calm a little. I couldn’t have defined it at the time, but I guess it was the early dawning of my realization that even though there was still a gaping uncertainty as to what had happened or why, and the confusion and hurt were still present and unyielding, I could pick up and move forward. Things would never be the same, but even this literally earth-shattering, world-twisting event, even this too, shall pass. It felt like the world had ended, and in very certain terms, a portion of our innocence and cheerful obliviousness did literally die. But there is always an element of alacrity in the human spirit. And if at all possible, a well-defined, probably badly bruised and deeply buried, but somehow indefatigable will to live will rise up. 

I guess personally, for my own emotional health, my body or God or whatever moved me, just knew I needed to run, to start the healing process within myself. It wasn’t really a thoughtful choice, more of a numb knee-jerk reaction, but by running that day, I had subconsciously decided not to allow outside circumstances to determine my reality for me.  I didn’t know that was what I was doing at the time, but looking back at it now, by making the choice to run anyway, I can see it was what allowed me to begin the process of healing.  

It was a prayer.

Vision Runner

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