I’ve become a runner. Not in the good way. Not like the people who push their bodies beyond breathlessness, past pain, further than fatigue; put one foot in front of the other and come as close to flying as physically possible.
I don’t do that kind of running.
I’d like to, but my knees (and current fitness levels) won’t let me.
I’d like to run marathons but for now, all I do, all I want to do… is run away.
Not like when I was a little girl, got angry at my mother, packed a teddy bear and a pillow and said I was leaving.
Not in the sense of quitting my job, moving away and starting over. (Though, I’ll admit, the thought has crossed my mind lately.)
I’ve become a runner.
The moment I sense any kind of romantic emotional vulnerability within myself, I want to shoo whoever has crawled their way in away like an unwanted customer, close up shop of my heart and nail the boards down like I’m preparing for a storm.
I think that’s why I want to run.
Because when my heart starts turning to mush, disaster often follows.
I wouldn’t say it’s a cause and effect situation but this love thing has shown me flames in the past and what kind of fool would I be not to run when I remember the smell of burning?
I loved a man who was a runner once.
Tall and witty with a distinct nose and an even more distinct air of emotional unavailability. It was the thing I disliked most about him.
He left my fingers bloody trying to claw him back open every time the word ‘love’ came up in casual conversation, he spoke about the future as if it’s a hypothetical situation and… he didn’t stay.
He didn’t stay, I suppose, because in the grand scheme of things he wasn’t supposed to, but just like all the other lovers who came and loved and left, he taught me a few things.
That I never want to run from love.
That there’s nothing enlightened about emotional detachment.
And, simply, that cowardice is not in my nature.
I don’t want to be a runner.
I don’t want to fear what may or may not happen, a hypothetical heartbreak that lies somewhere in the fuzzy future.
I don’t want to miss out on all the wonderful things life and love could bring just because there’s a possibility of maybe one day being heartbroken again.
I don’t want to be a runner. I want to be brave.
So I do the thing you do when you realise you’re going down the wrong road: I stop. I turn around. I try another way.
Because most days I’m terrified. But I’m not a coward.
I want to be brave. And I will be.
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