To run
A love letter to the simplest form of joy I know.
It’s taken a while—years, in fact, to find my feet again.
For so long, lacing up my running shoes and heading out into the cold was what tethered me to myself. It was automatic, a muscle memory that felt as natural as brushing my teeth. At times, too, it was an addiction. Not only did it provide a much-needed dopamine hit, but it was also a way to punish myself. I would run off the sins of the day—or night.
Afterwards, I’d feel exhausted, and my muscles would ache with the exertion. But I also felt clean. Virtuous. Disciplined.
As the years passed, thankfully, the urge to run evolved to a place that had more to do with soothing a racing mind than from any form of self-flagellation—joy became the driver. Running was a pure and simple form of joy. And when the moods and mountains and madness of life felt all too much, running was a constant.
Throughout adolescence and adulthood, lacing up my running shoes became an intrinsic part of my daily routine. It was effortless.
So when I found myself all but paralysed with sickness during pregnancy, it wasn’t my rapidly shifting body that broke me. But my inability to run.
At first, I admit, I barely noticed. All I could focus on was trying to simply survive the day. But I’d lost my feet. And I’d lost myself.
Even when I came out from under the fog of early parenthood the first time to try and test my feet again, I wasn’t rewarded with the bliss I used to feel. I was handed a pelvic injury—a reminder that my body was looser now. The muscles and membranes and tendons had all stretched beyond recognition, and it was going to take a long, long time to get back on track.
So, for a time, I surrendered. I put my running shoes away. I leant into more gentle forms of movement like Pilates, walking, stretching. It was fine, I guess. But I longed for the runner’s high. I craved the sweat and exhaustion of a good run.
I just had to be patient.
What I couldn’t see then was that I would find my feet again. Or, perhaps, they would find me. I’d finally discover that my body was regaining some strength. That my pelvis wasn’t going to collapse in a puddle on the floor and that if I ran, just a little bit, I would gain some confidence.
Nobody warns you about how becoming a parent shifts your senses about the edges of your own body. For a time, at least, your body doesn’t feel like it belongs to you at all. But months, even years, can go by before you notice that the little hands that had once pulled and tugged and grasped for you constantly are now busy elsewhere. One day, there won’t be a child resting on your hip or napping on your chest, or crying for you in the night. And one morning, you will wake up and lace up your running shoes as if no time has passed at all.
At first, it will feel scary. But as the sound of gravel starts to crunch beneath your feet and your lungs begin to stretch and groan, clearing the stale air from your chest, muscle memory will find you again. The runner’s high will return, and when you get home, your reflection in the mirror will look a little different. She’ll be staring back at you and smiling. Welcome home, she says.
