I could blame my increasing disinterest in running on a number of things: boyfriends, friends and generally just being a 17-year-old punk kid who thought she knew everything. Flipping though old journals reveals that my head was mostly in the clouds, starstruck and/or heartbroken over one boy or another. But nothing you wouldn't expect from a 17 year old girl's diary. I was never a trouble maker or anything - I got good grades and was heavily involved in the church. But by the time I was a senior, I was driving around town in my beat up Chavette feeling like the world was my oyster and running wasn't it. I got a bug up my but about quitting.
But, ah yes. That guitar.
I'd been eyeing it in the store window for weeks, falling asleep to fantasies about playing it in indie coffee shops in The Village, although at that time I wasn't too sure what 'The Village' was or where; I just knew I wanted to be there. My 17-year-old mind was ready to move on and I thought a guitar was my ticket out. Mom and I went around and around about it. She reminded me that she didn't raise a quitter and I had made a commitment to Coach, to the team and to myself.
"I want to quit," I said. As selfish as it was, I believed I actually could go through with it and not regret it.
Beat down and tired of trying to reason with me, she waved the offer of a guitar in front of me, almost without thinking. I latched on to the bribe like a lifeline and followed though on our agreement. I didn't run hard or even try. I didn't care. I did only enough to get by until I could say I was finished. After I ran my last race of the season, the last of my running career, my last race EVER, I kicked off my shoes and tuned up my guitar.
Like the circular motion of the stars, life often brings us back to our original starting points but with a wiser perspective so that we might learn where we've been, where we're going and how we'll get there. 10 years after I almost quit, I find myself training to run my first marathon with a noble purpose out of my own free will and that guitar is shoved under my bed somewhere amongst the dust bunnies.
2 comments:
Woman, you are quite poetic! Have you always been this way or has your love of running turned you into this? Whatever the case may be, keep up the great writing! I hope you're saving this stuff on hard copy too for your own kids to read someday. :)
Gee, thanks =)
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