She ran in the dark. It was cold and she desperately wanted to turn around and climb back into her warm bed. Why am I out here? What am I doing? But she knew the answers, these were rhetorical questions even to herself. She liked running (just not the cold). She liked how it made her feel strong, invincible, like the athlete she'd been in her youth. It made her feel powerful. And centered. It let her think and process and, if she wanted, to just be. Concentrate on breathing, one foot in front of the other, nothing but going forward. The kick up in endorphins didn't hurt either. It was her morning cup of coffee, so to speak. On days she ran, afterwards, she felt like she could take on anything.
But right here, in this moment, it was fucking cold. 47 degrees fahrenheit, to be exact. As a native California, that's deep winter chill right there. She'd been out running for 5 minutes now and was beginning to wonder if she'd ever warm up enough to not feel it. Normally, this far in, she'd be starting to peel off the layers, but today, she thought she'd wished she put more on. If I'm still this cold at 10 minutes, I'll turn then and head back. That's still a 20 minute run and good enough for today. But she knew if she hit 10 minutes she'd be able to talk herself in to finishing out the next 5, putting her at the halfway mark anyway. 15 out and 15 back. She'd been out of the running game for years and wanted to ease herself back in. She'd been training for a marathon years ago, pushed her mileage too far too fast and ended up with stress fractures in both fibulas. She'd given birth to 5 kids and those stress fractures were by far the most painful thing she'd ever endured (they only give you the good drugs when you have babies, apparently.) It had taken months to heal, to be allowed any exercise at all. Running was out of the question. And then the fear had set in (not to mention the weight). When you go from marathon training to basically bedridden, you put on pounds. And then she'd always been an emotional eater. Combined with the freefall of her natural high of endorphins - it was an almost deadly combination. She'd plunged into one of the deepest depressions of her life and at one point had contemplated suicide. She'd gone to therapy and had made the decision that she could never leave her children with that legacy - of a mother who didn't love them enough to stick around. She would not do that to them. And so, she told her therapist that she'd "taken suicide off the table." It would never be an option. It was a weird sort of mental relief when she decided that.
After years of therapy, both mental and physical, she'd gradually started losing weight and regaining her sense of sanity. She was started to feel functional. She missed running terribly, but was still afraid. Afraid of breaking herself again. She'd even given it a couple of half-hearted attempts only to give up after a day or two and not try again for months. But finally, slowly, she'd gotten back out on the road. She eased into to by first going for walks to get used to the new routine of getting up before the kids and the sun and what seemed like the rest of the world. She had loved running in the dark. She loved the solitude and quiet and feeling like she had the world all to herself. She had always been a bit of an introvert, a loner, someone who preferred to be by herself. And as a mother of 5 kids, she appreciated and needed whatever few moments of alone time she could carve out. Most of her kids were grown and moved out. She just had two still in high school. She felt that her home was practically empty and knew that it was only a matter of a handful of years at best before she would have more solitude and alone time than she'd know what to do with. She looked forward to it with longing and apprehension. She'd loved the chaos of a busy house full of kids. She missed being a young mom and planning fun holidays and birthdays and outings to parks and vacations to Disneyland. But she's spent most of it a single mom, and had also been completely overwhelmed and exhausted by it all too. And then there was the ugly black hole of depression that had stolen nearly 7 years of her life. She missed a lot in those years, when she was just trying to survive day to day. No one knew what it took to pull herself out and try to find the light in the world again. And by the time she'd gotten out of the hole enough to be able to look around, her kids had all but grown up. She spent a lot of time now trying not to let herself be consumed by regret. I'm still here. I made it out. I am grateful. She would repeat this to herself when the voices would start the negative self-talk, trying to drag her back down into her personal hell. I won't go back there. I can't. I can't afford to lose anymore time to the nothingness of it.
As her mind came back to her running, she realized she wasn't as cold anymore. When she wasn't paying attention, her body had warmed up. It's that whole a watched pot never boils cliche, sort of like how you get rid of hiccups, think about something else. And so she ran on.
She used to listen to music when she ran, mostly Bon Jovi and late 80s/early 90s music from her high school and college years. But a couple of years ago, she had switched to audiobooks. Audiobooks were great because unlike music that she could tune out, she actually had to pay attention to be able to follow the plot. She had some mild audio-processing issues which made taking in information solely through sound extra difficult for her (she was a visual learner to the extreme) but the challenge of it was perfect for running, especially on a long hard run. She would be so busy concentrating on following what was being said that she'd hardly pay any attention to what she was doing. Her runs were usually over too soon, with seemingly little to no effort on her part whatsoever. She preselected her running course and would have time/mileage markers so she knew she was keeping a good pace, but then she'd set her brain and body on autopilot and just go. It was very freeing. Which was something she desperately needed.
She had noticed this morning as she set out (besides the freezing cold) that it seemed darker than usual. It was 5:30 and April, so the sun hadn't come up yet as it would a little closer to summer. But she could hardly see but for the street lights, and it finally occurred to her that the sky was overcast and obscuring the normal moonlight that would be brightening things normally. It made the streets look ominous as she was running, which long shadows cast only by the occasional street light. She began to notice how few street lights there were, which long stretches of almost total darkness. And she realized she was wearing all black, except for her almost neon teal cross-trainers that she hated but had bought because they were the cheapest of all the other colors of those shoes (gee, i wonder why!) And since these were shoes she only wore when she ran, by herself, the color didn't matter. And money was always tight, and buying herself expensive running shoes had seemed like an extravagance anyway, so she had tried to get the least expensive expensive pair she could find. Neon teal notwithstanding they were a damn good investment. She never got blisters and the numb toes sensation she usually got with previous shoes was nonexistent with these. The key was a bigger toe box and something fucking simple as the way they were laced for god sake. She felt like a total idiot when after much google-researching she had literally stumbled on that information. Women need more room in the toes, and even shoes made for women are usually poorly designed and don't give a large enough toe box. So lace up loosely at the toes and tighten more as you get closer to the ankle. Game changer! It was a revelation.
She had seen the lost/found poster as she'd passed it on her way out on her run, but it was too dark to actually read. 9 times out of 10, it was someone's cat. Occasionally it was a dog. Once she'd seen one for a cockatiel. Yeah, good luck with that she'd remember thinking. Usually it was a lost cat, occasionally a found dog. And then the bird that flew the coup so to speak.
