Adventure Run

Sorry, it's been awhile!

It's been a rough week for me, between being sick with a cold at the beginning of the week and then some work drama that was mostly embarrassing and stupid.

So this morning I went on a long run. Well, long for me. Six miles. Yeah, I'm badass. Bow to me. But only after I bow to my friend in Chicago who completed 20 miles in a single run last week. Now the funny thing about today's run is that I was sort of half-assed about the whole thing as I was getting ready for the run. I had slept until eight, which stop the presses -- I can't even tell you what an amazing feat that was because sleep? Some time I need to go into a whole long post about my insomnia. Although come to think of it, that would probably put you all to sleep. But I'd be happy about that because I'd know that at least SOMEONE would be getting some sleep, right? But this isn't about sleep. This is about my run and my state of mind before and during. So I was all proud of my body for letting me go back to sleep after I had awoken at 5 a.m. all wired and ready to go. I woke up at 8 thinking that must be a wild and bizarre dream or a sick joke because my body never lets me sleep that late. You have to understand that 6 a.m. is generally sleeping in for me. A night I can sleep through the whole night? Never happens. So anyway, I had this "eh whatever" feeling when I was getting ready for my run. I could take it or leave it. Maybe I'll run 5 miles or maybe just 5 minutes. It was all the same to me. But all I knew is that I was craving that run.

I figured it would help with this sick, anxious feeling I've had in the pit of my stomach all week. It's a variety of things causing this low-grade anxiety -- some silly, some momentous life-changing type things. I've been thinking a lot for some reason about the era in late 2007 just before my husband (who shall from now on be referred to as Mo in this blog) and I took off for the island of Trinidad. I was teaching, same as I am now, in a research literacy job that I loved. I lived in the city of Jacksonville, a city that while was not perfect for me in every way, was really sort of glamorous for me (Palm trees! Ocean! Great restaurants! Southern hospitality! Warm weather in winter! Alligators sauntering down the sidewalks! Hurricanes!). It was the last time that Mo and I lived together as a real family unit with our two cockatiels and our humble home by the St. Johns River and our daily walks. What triggered this surge of nostalgia you might ask? I recently came upon a notebook that one of my work friends there had given me as a goodbye present. It had a beautiful tropical scene on the front and in the inside she had written,

Wish I could be with you to celebrate your dream sabbatical to a desert island where you can immerse yourself literally in the setting of your book. I'm really going to miss you. It's hard to lose someone I thought of as, I guess like a soul sister. We have a lot in common and see things in the same quirky ways. You're the only one I think I can share my thoughts and ideas with and not have them think I'm a little out there. I hope you love it in Trinidad. Having lived on an island myself for a year, I can only say it's the experience of a lifetime. Enjoy!

Aside from my heart constricting with gratitude for a friend's sweetness followed by my sarcastic thought of, "yeah, THAT worked out really well, didn't it," my other immediate thought was, "YES! I want THAT me back again." I miss that me that can give away all her belongings and fly off into adventures far away, never needing to live that "normal" life that everyone else is relegated to. I fly my freak flag. I'm different because I'm not meant to live a normal life. Not that a normal life is bad. Oh, sometimes a normal, stable life is so comforting I can almost feel the cotton sheets and the down pillow on my cheek. Sometimes I envy people who have lived in the same area all their lives surrounded by the same friends and family. When people have worked at a job for over three years, I marvel at that. How can they not get bored? How can they not go out of their mind wondering what else is out there? How can they not crave adventures? (No, going to a classy resort on a tropical island for vacation is NOT an adventure unless of course, the crocodile eats your friend, your passport is swept away by a massive tsunami that hits the island, and you are abducted by pirates who eat crispy hexagon cereal for breakfast in anticipation of how much they will make off your organs on the black market). Yeah, THEN talk to me about adventure, yo.

These things I thought about as I ran this morning. Along the way I stuck my tongue out at a sign advertising something or other in front of someone's house that said, "Like us on facebook." I happily felt immune as I ran past some thuggish teenagers (nobody mugs runners -- they carry nothing--), I met a twin to my niece Miss Rose (same first name, same birthday month), and I watched people already getting drunk in anticipation of a football game in tailgate parties that must have started by 9 a.m. Are these not adventures, I wondered? Can you not have adventures in your own backyard, however so humble? Last weekend I hula hooped in the park with Saturday Sequins and Mr. Sequins. Mr. Sequins even had his ninja bike with him. Is this not coolness to the extreme of coolness? Yes, I agree that it is! Okay, so you don't really need a tsunami and pirates to have an adventure, although at least they might have made the children at the nearby birthday party stop screeching.

I finished my run an hour and fifteen minutes after I set off and felt like a new person afterwards. I had not set out to do six miles. It had just happened. Just like there were so many things that I did not plan in my life. Things happened, things were set into motion, and life happened. Life is today. Life is now. Every day is an adventure.

Or an opportunity to sleep, so says my Siamese, who is curled at my feet right now.