I'm a Runner

I think I've written my running back-story before, and that was not my intent with this post.  It's a good story though, and I'll be sure to write it up if I discover that I haven't already.  It took me a long time before I could say so, but for the purpose of this post, I'm just going to say that I'm a runner.

So today while I was running, it occurred to me that one of the reasons I like running is because I am in control.  I am the one to push myself to run harder and farther than I thought I could.  I'm the one that decides when I sprint and when I walk.  I'm not the victim when I'm running, and that is a role I have a hard time letting go of.

I have always felt like I was under someone else, controlled by someone else, made smaller so as to be accepted by someone else.  I have always struggled with feeling like I didn't have the power or the right to say yes or no.  This victimhood is where I lived my life for so long that it began to feel like home.  That was my comfort zone.  As long as something was happening TO me, then I was ok.  The problem with that mentality is that sometimes life does let up; sometimes you do get some streaks of good luck and you find that life is really pretty good.  And you don't know what to do with that, so you create your own drama and find a way to get back to the life you know and love, the life of victim.  For the longest time, one of the hardest things for me to hear was someone telling me how great I had things, because I just didn't even know what to do with that.  When life was good, I found myself running in the opposite direction, looking for trouble.

Being in control and being happy with how well things are going has been one of the tough things for me to learn on this healing journey.  There are days that I still struggle with it.  It seems silly.  It seems like a ridiculous problem to have, I know.  I suppose that's just par for my screwed up course of life.  (See, I STILL think of myself as the victim!)

I ran today for the first time since the half marathon over a month ago.  I was dreading this run because I was worried about how much endurance I had lost.  I planned for 3 miles, regardless how long it would take.  I felt pretty good for the first mile, better than I expected actually.  And really, mile two wasn't too tough either.  Mile three was when I started to get winded and started to adjust for some walk breaks.  My first thought was that I don't have to do anything I don't want to do.  If I want to walk, then I'll walk, dammit!  Then I thought that while I might be entitled to take as long as I damn well please, was that really what I wanted for myself?  If I wanted to feel like I had done my best, then I'd have to push myself.  Nobody else was going to do it for me.  If I ended up walking the whole last mile, I didn't have anyone to blame but myself, because when I'm out running, I'm not the victim of someone else.  It's up to me to have the audacity to decide that I can do something that might be hard.  I can decide that I want something better than a walking pace.  I can decide that I'm worth working hard for, and I'm worth being proud of.  I'm a runner and I'm going to push myself to do something that I can feel proud of.  I don't have to make myself smaller so I can fit under someone else.  I can't be both victim and runner, and I choose runner.