“The greatest difficulty of travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.”
Alain de Botton
I’m a runner. Not the kind that burns off a million calories during the heart pumping and the clapping of feet against pavement, but the kind that exhibits all the physical manifestations without the resulting benefits of a tight tushy and a flat belly.
The running is within. I’ve been a runner for so long I hadn’t even realized until recently that I had become such a consummate athlete.
When people run, they are usually trying to get from point A to point B in a linear fashion, moving with focus and clarity toward a certain destination.
But my running has only one focus — to get away from myself. To do this effectively, you must run in many directions and most times, there is no guidance system, so you’re kind of all over the road, experiencing near misses with other runners — emotional runners like yourself. When an emotional runner like me meets up with a like-minded runner, the results can be devastating, because unlike a physical runner who is in clear sight, you never see the emotional runner approaching until you collide.
This quote from de Botton that I read on the back of a Starbucks cup this week made me realize there has been this annoying “something” that was never loud enough to care about, just annoying enough to get my attention and keep me on alert, on the lookout for impending disaster.
“You’ve lived your whole life in fear,” a man I was with once told me.
“Yep,” I said, “you’re right.”
What he did not realize, however, or chose not to acknowledge, was that he was a runner, too. I was running from life. He was running from love, and needless to say when two emotional runners collide, the earth does indeed move under your feet, as Carole King sings.
My fear of life led me to attract the most wonderful men — the rescuers — the ones who save us physically, attending to our outward needs, then sometimes break our hearts. Because sometimes when the rescuing is done and the need is over, so are we.
When I am with a man I trust completely, my fears abate. I think they’ve melted away into oblivion, when in reality they’ve just faded back into the pocket they’ve been tucked into for most of my life, only to resurface when the guy leaves.
So what does this mean, I wonder? Am I only able to be happy and at peace when there’s a guy in my life?
Perhaps it is appropriate to grieve for a lack of a loving relationship in your life, but for how long?
The Starbucks cup let me know my travels are tainted because no matter where I go, that pain and fear are my constant companions.
When we get a bit older, there’s a good chance we’ll slow down a bit. We can’t keep up the frenetic pace, which is necessary to keep those emotions under wraps.
I used to walk three miles every morning at a fairly brisk pace. Along with the pounding of the pavement, there was the pounding of rock ’n’ roll that went from my ears to my heart, to my soul. Both helped to block what swirled around inside me.
I still walk — not as much and not as hard, and with no music now. I think there are years when we cover up what our heart feels — or doesn’t want to feel — and the wheels in our head are comfortable with that feeling. At some point, however, you cannot hear the music anymore over the turning of those annoying wheels that somehow have reached “tilt” speed. You realize the pounding of the pavement hurts your feet and your knees. And whether it’s heavy metal, rock ’n’ roll or country, the tunes just cannot seem to keep the noise in your head from making itself heard.
And these days, for me, that noise is like a brass marching band.
Where to go now? No cover to escape to and no one around to ride shotgun as backup.
A few years ago, although my columns reflected what I was feeling, there was a bit of a veil covering all that murky, toxic stuff I didn’t even know about, until I slowed down enough to inhale the fumes.
You think you’ve gotten those weak links tightened up pretty well, but then life surprises you and takes you back over and over again until whatever issues go bump in your night are faced dead on.
I was reminded of this when I watched the movie “Groundhog Day” the other night.” In the film Bill Murray is forced to face his ego- manical self in neon colors as he lives and relives the same crazy day until he “gets it.” He wakes up to the song “I Got You Babe” over and over until he finally crushes the radio, but to know avail. The beat goes on and on, day after day, until he begins to change one small thing at a time, eventually bringing about a different outcome.
Perhaps life is not so much about growing up or growing older, but rather growing through everything that both sweetens and threatens us in varying degrees at various times in our lives.
It’s been said that the only way out of a mess is through it. But many times we spend too much time dancing around the entrance, avoiding the door because we’re so afraid of what lies on the other side.
At some point, the fear of living in the mess, the chaos or the uncertainty of whatever plagues us, becomes greater than the fear of opening that door and beginning the tedious job of dealing with that stuff — our own — and the stuff we’ve allowed others to drizzle or pour all over us.
For most of us, this means opening that door, walking into the fire, facing whatever lies within to get through it and close the door on whatever we need to leave behind us.
I came across a quote by Robyn Davidson that not only encouraged me in my own quest for resolution to unfinished “stuff” lining my mind, but also allowed me to realize that many of us are dealing with similar issues:
“And it struck me that the most difficult thing had been the decision to act,
The rest had been mere tenacity, And the fears were paper tigers.”
Contact Clare Celano at [email protected].