I took a day off from work today. No, I wasn’t physically sick or ill. I didn’t have a family emergency. No. Today I took what one would call a mental health day. You see I have been dealing with a broken heart for months now and it has once again been agitated. I found out She went back into a relationship with Her ex. Now without being too descriptive of Her business I can just say that, I was the rebound from that initial break up..the one that was there to pick up those pieces. That alone is enough to send my ego into a fit of rage. But really, it wasn’t that long that we had been dating..a few months..a mere blip in the timelines of great romances in my life. Why has this taken me so long and why does it still render my emotions so intense that I have nothing to give to the world on days like this except tears? (How is that for dramatic?) I fell deeply hard really fast. That just never happens to me. Then it just fell apart and I’ve been dealing with the difficult aftermath of it all on top of the depression and anxiety that I’ve been working through after my grandmother’s death. I’ve made a ton of progress but this is one I just can’t shake.
I’m in the middle of marathon training, so I begrudgingly brought myself out of bed, washed my face from the night and early morning cry fest, put on my running clothes, and laced up my Asics. It was the middle of the day and I thought to myself, “It’s going to be really hot at this time, is this a good idea to go now in the late summer months of South Texas?”
Actually yes, it was the only idea and the only thing I could think to do to try to ease the tension. So out the door and up the street I went. At first it felt pleasant, there was shade on my block along with a breeze. I was admiring the blue sky and the flowers on the trees as I passed them by. (The first mile is always a liar.) Since I have began training without music, thoughts about Her and our situation take way too much of my time and energy as much as I hate to admit it. On especially long runs, when all I have are my thoughts, when my mind begins to wander to those negative feelings, I tell myself that the run is not Hers. It is mine and if I want to make it the whole way, I need to save that energy and not expend it on something that I have no control over. I use radical acceptance and meditation practices of focusing on the breath during those times. However today, that was just not the case. As I continued on my run I came to a long stretch where there was no shade. The sun began to beat down on me and the thoughts began to come in like a waterfall. All the hurtful things said and done, the resentment, anger, the loss, the pain…my body began to tense and my eyes welled with tears. So I ran harder and began to focus on the the uncomfortable heat and pace of the run. I wanted it to hurt a bit; I felt that if it hurt more than what my heart was feeling, maybe I could stop focusing on it for even a few minutes. But the immensity of what I have been feeling for months took over. I was not able to push it aside today and I began to cry. First, just a few streams of tears down my face, but eventually I began to sob. I gave in. I Gave Her My Run.
Crying while running is difficult because your energy is being distributed to two different places, so I had to eventually stop and wipe my face from the sweat and tears and gather my breath. It was hot, I was sad, and I just wanted to crawl back into my bed but I was 2.5 miles away from home and didn’t have much of a choice. So I started to run again…this time slower because I had already began to exhaust myself from the emotional break down. I had two more moments of tears but I made it home. I wish that I could say that the run along with the letting go made me feel better, but it didn’t. They say that curiosity killed the cat, but I’m more than positive that a broken heart did.
I am unfortunately sure that I will have more moments like today. I’m sure that I will run into both of them randomly in the ice cream isle of the grocery store on a Friday night while I’m alone with an 8lb bag of Epsom Salt and cat food in my cart and they will be happily picking out beer and food to eat for their Netflix and chill time together. These things go through my mind, and as silly as it sounds they certainly do happen to me. But I do know one thing, She will never have another one of my runs again.
Run all the hills life gives you; the hard, the heartbreaking, emotionally exhausting ones…Especially run the ones that look like they are going to hurt because they most certainly will. But don’t stop, just keep running. I have faith that there will always be peaks that we reach for every hill we encounter no matter how far down we feel like we may be in the beginning. I may not have reached my peak just yet in this situation, but I am certain I will.
Original Post Date: Sep 12th, 2016 6:25:09pm
