Though we have sparred, wrestled, and raged . . .
Today was my first run since the Wall Street debacle of a few weeks back; a five-miler in Central Park courtesy of Front Runners in observance of this, the last weekend in June. Summer racing season begins in earnest with the Pride Run, or at least for myself in this instance. An injury kept me out of the Healthy Kidney 10K, whose participants ceaselessly taunt me with their techno t-shirts sponsored generously by the likes of Emirates Airlines, Juneirah Hotels, and the Royal Embassy of al Imirat-al-Mutahida. A terribly Ay-rab race; but for a good cause considering my family’s poor nephritic history. Alas, my quads had something else to say on that matter. Indifference and a deposition teamed up to sideline me from the Anniversary Run, a modest 4.8 miler whose most salient attribute is the post-race handout of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes. Though ,as I’ve been trying to tell myself in self-satisfied retrospection, high fructose corn syrup should never be consumed on an empty stomach. I’m sure there were other races in June as well, and plenty of other excuses to not run them. Father’s Day predictably had the Father’s Day Run, in contravention of prostate cancer. I was in D.C. that weekend, handing out resumes and choking down pints of Bass. There’s was a Mother’s Day Run too, presumably in May, its efforts directed this time to Domestic Abuse. I was in Chicago, giving my Mother the rare Mother’s Day gift of three simultaneous bar admissions. I may have missed a few more. And I will probably miss further still. I haven’t minded it much. . . until this morning.
I ran this race last year at the height of my . . . actually, no not that at all, not at the height of anything. In fact, someplace much more powerful. At the beginning , perhaps not the base, of my awareness that I could literally run myself into eternity. To finally, at last, explode myself off of me and finally create a little space in reality for my dreams. Those dreams, at the time, appeared simple enough. I would take the bar exam, then I would run a marathon. Preferably in under 3:45. Indeed I did all three. I took a bar exam. Two in fact. And I ran a marathon. In 3:28. I no longer knew my own strength, which would soon prove problematic as I would have to spend the next few months in perpetual staredown with one of my greatest weaknesses. And trying desperately not to blink. My eyes hurt from all the staring, but it got me a 25-point improvement on my MBE score and what I can only imagine were decent upticks in my essay performance. Of course, not all is perfect. I still have one more exam to take. The job situation remains situational, but there is cause for hope (to be explained in another post).
Other things have changed too. My mother’s health for one thing. And Jeff’s accident/coma/recovery. I do my damnedest to avoid saturating myself in needless self-pity, but I’ve learned recently that it does me no good to pretend that I’m not carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders right now. This, perforce, will explain just why it is I’m back at the base.
I’m back at the base, but in the context of a new reality, one informed by dreams now realized and anchored in a very unique temporal agony. I should celebrate, really. I should celebrate that my lungs can carry me across five miles without a whole lot of struggle, where my mother’s prevent her from ascending even the smallest steps, where Jeff’s receive air through a trach in his throat inhibiting his ability to speak. I should celebrate. And I shouldn’t concern myself too much with pride (capitalized or otherwise).
Sure, I’ve got alot of ground to make up, but it’s ground that I am well familiar with. It is ground on whose trails I strode maniacally towards accomplishment, even if it meant taking the long way. It’s ground manifest of effort, perserverance, and determination. I should be proud. Perhaps I am indeed.
But right now, I just want to get ready for the next race so I can beat my sorry-ass into the ground for how I finished today. Pride goeth before the fall, and ascendeth on the way back up too.
