Passing People in the Dark

Running in the dark:

I've decided that the best way to train during the summer in Colorado is to go for a run just after the sun sets. Not dusk, but about a half hour after dusk, where you can immediately slip on the cloak of darkness as soon as you slink beyond the scope of the porch light. It's cooler then, less muggy, and any audience is most likely blinded by the dark. I actually get pretty nervous running in the dark, mostly because I live alone and don't want to slip away into the night without someone noticing my absence until the next morning. So, on the evenings I choose to workout after sunset, I tell a friend my self-imposed curfew, where I plan to go, I grab my phone, and then run like a bat out of hell to stay one step ahead of the Bogey Man. Despite the threat of said Bogey Man, it turns out there's actually a significant population of runners who prefer to squeeze their miles in just before they slip in to bed. 

Most of these fellow PM runners don't get the heebie jeebies from any number of strangely shaped shadows the way I do, which is probably why summer is actually my favorite running season. On a night run, when I come up behind someone lumbering along comfortably and probably relishing in the availability of significantly cooler temperatures, I breathe a barely audible "Excuse me: on your left," and then whiz by. Not only do I scare the bejeezus out of that runner as I effortlessly skirt around them (I bet you didn't know how many ways there are to jump when you're startled!), but then I quickly piss them off as they realize they just got passed ... by a girl! 

Tonight's Run: 

The above description was tonight's run in a nutshell. I needed to get in some movement after an entire day spent in my apartment, working on home projects and applying to several jobs online. I didn't spend much time with other people today and I didn't have my girls tonight. Needless to say, I needed to remind myself that there were real human beings outside the plain walls of my little apartment. As I ran tonight, I felt quick and comfortable, and I surprised myself by effortlessly passing each runner that shared my nighttime running venue. When I hit the end of the route I had dictated to a friend after only 25 minutes, I decided that I was satisfied with the run, and so let myself slow to a peppy walk. As I strolled home, another runner - a woman - zipped by me and propelled herself effortlessly up the tiny hill I was using as a cool down. 

Who is my real running competition?

As soon as I was passed, my competitive self launched into a rant about how I was just as fit as the woman disappearing ahead of me; I was just taking an easy day and maybe she was just starting her run. I heard the little voice in my head begin to make a laundry list of excuses or comparisons.

And suddenly, it hit me: Why am I trying to be anything but what I can be right now? 

Cue parallel analysis to the rest of my existence. Sometimes I can't stand when my brain needs to scrutinize, probe, and dissect every detail of my current reality to make any sense of it. I'm pretty sure this is a subconscious attempt at making some sort of momentous revelation so I can hurry up and figure out the moral to be learned and move on already. In the last couple of weeks, my conscious mind has made it especially clear that it won't rest until any emotional pain has been properly turned into a handy piece of knowledge. And there's a lot of emotional pain right now. So when the automatic response to watching another runner pass me turned into even more internal analysis, I started to shut down. But then came my "Aha moment" (the above question about being the me I can be), which abruptly sorted every strain of analysis into nice, neat little compartments. And the internal interpretation stopped. 

It sounds totally cheesy, but the revelation was so simple and so suddenly clear, it was as though the clouds (or stars, in this case) had parted and a ginormous hand had reached down to pass me the memo I'd been missing. My lesson to be learned seemed to be this: There's no reason to hang on to what used to be, because those moments will never again happen in exactly the same way. Duh, I'm pretty sure I actually knew that. But I suppose that when it comes to letting go, we're pre-programmed to want to project the same happiness or victory into any future moments that originally helped to define certain moments from our past. There comes a point in every run, every race, every situation, and every relationship where we have to accept that change is inevitable and a part of the process. We change physically, our strategies change, our appreciation for different parts of the experience change, and we become different individuals in the process. Rather than doing everything we can to hold on to the exact details of how it used to be in order to replicate that same chain of scenarios and the same accompanying feelings, I'm convinced we can make a conscious decision.  We can look back with recognition and a smile, or we can take the necessary lesson associated with the experience and store that feeling and memory away in a vault, along with other pieces of the past.  

Grief is good, but it's a process: You can't be a high school runner forever!

There is certainly a grieving process involved in letting things go and in allowing the possibility of future outcomes that, at one point, seemed improbable or maybe even impossible. And part of that grieving process includes complete denial and a stubborn refusal to accept any forward movement, away from the era that has just ended. I'm no exception to this. I'm currently smack dab in the middle of the stubborn denial stage in a handful of areas of my life and am comfortable that I'm sitting stubbornly in that stage. It's part of the process, right? It's definitely a confusing and mentally challenging stage to be in. I keep trying to imagine futures that exactly replicate the very thing that I know is over. But I know that I can't live in this stage and that I won't stay here forever. Change will find me, even as I try to run away as fast as I can and hide among the dark shadows after dusk. 

Back to the woman who passed me up the hill: Good for her. Hopefully she felt as energized and spritely as I did at the beginning of my run. I don't have to be better than she is, nor do I have to be far ahead of the curve in cross country running as I was in high school, where I could pass competitors left and right, and then run for hours more. And I'm certainly not "out of shape" now just because my knees might get a bit more tender after a run, or an hour run seems like the endurance event of the century, or a marathon was biting off more than I could chew. It's just that it's not the same "shape." 

But why be anything other than the runner I am right now? Moving on, or just letting something be a memory rather than a hope for the future, doesn't mean completely giving up on the possibility of finding bits and pieces of those memories in slightly rearranged scenarios and outcomes.

And so it goes with everything else in my life. I can cry because something's over, or because its rare to be able to avoid the pain that comes with accepting the present moment rather than letting go of what could have been. Or I can even pout because someone else might still see the memory and see anything else as failure. But I'll probably still whiz by people through the summer darkness and when I'm done, I can smile in recognition as I cheer for the ones who pass me.