Runner's High after the Low

Poor wee neglected blog. When life goes right, write suffers, as they say. Ok, well, maybe 'they' don't, because I just made it up, but they will, someday and they'll quote me.
So much has been going right that it's hardly worth putting down. Besides, the gods are jealous.... I KNOW they say that, and indeed, it feels a bit like gloating to rest on all that's beautiful and awe-inspiring in my life now. 

So let's go to a memory, since I just got back from running with my kid. I was thinking tonight that I have one clear memory in my life of a runner's high. It's one of those defining things in life, one of those moments you look back on and think, "that was a moment that changed me." Sometimes when you deliberately try to conjure these memories they won't come, but this one surfaced tonight, and often does when I run / try to run.

I was about 12 and my best friend Heather and I, regularly joined at the hip as only young girl BFFs can be, had a habit of going to matinee movies on Saturdays. This Saturday, for some reason, I went to the movie thinking she couldn't go... and I saw her there, but with Dodey Scott.

DODEY SCOTT. My world crashed in. My BFF was hanging out with ... someone else. Another BFF. I felt like I had been dumped, as I had. I had been betrayed. Not only did she have a new BFF but they were doing OUR thing, going to a Saturday matinee! I don't remember the movie, I don't remember if I spoke to Heather, I don't remember if I saw them before or after the movie, and if before, if I actually went in... but I clearly remember the feeling of being crushed.

And so I left the theatre and headed to my Aunt Flo's where I was to meet my parents. But I ran... the whole way. At first I ran to escape the hurt, the wanting-to-cry pain in my eyes and chest; but soon, it felt like I'd entered a slipstream. I ran because I could. I had no emotions to outrun because I was just motion, pure energy. Nothing could touch me, or stop me. I ran the probably 12 blocks without once pausing to gasp for air. It felt like I ran an hour and yet it was timeless.

I've never recaptured that slipstream feeling. I'm convinced I'll never be fit enough to do it again, but then, I wasn't THAT fit at the time... regardless, the memory of that feeling sustains me through every one of my sporadic attempts to become a decent runner.