So I Could Run

How often do you walk or run?

I’ve talked quite a bit about my running days and how now, I don’t run anymore. I like running. I’d love to get back into running. I want to one day run a half marathon since the one and only one I was training for got cancelled because of Covid. Either that or run the 10 miles people said would mean I could run the full 13.1 distance of a half.

But with today’s question, I’m reminded of memes like this:

There are gobs of these memes out there. I picked this one because…Ryan Gosling.

But I think I could make my own version with just myself. Mine would say something like: young Sarah walked so middle-aged Sarah could run. I don’t know. I need to tweak the “young” part. The version of me that’s running now only started running a year ago. I’ve been middle-aged for longer than that. Or maybe traumatized Sarah walked so healed Sarah could run? You see where I’m going with this.

The me prior to this year suffered greatly through mental illness and repeated trauma. “Prior to this year” doesn’t sound accurate, though it is. More like, I suffered nearly my whole life. Of course, there were good moments. My life hasn’t been bad experiences repeated every single day. But it has been difficult. Some days more than others.

All of it was necessary though. The person I am now is because of what I went through. I speak my mind now and mean it, because I spent my life being terrified to do that. I was conditioned to feel that silence was safer. I’m active on social media and what’s crazy is how I handle people saying hateful or criticizing kind of things in response to a post or comment of mine. It actually doesn’t bother me. It does only in the sense that it makes me mad. It doesn’t kick start my anxiety. I’ve actually gotten good at responding to the hateful comments. I don’t get them often, but when I do, I’m able to respond with enough snark not to be as ugly back, but enough to make them not respond back or delete their post, which happened recently and I was so proud of myself!

This is not to say my mental health is perfect now. I still have some healing to do. But overall, it’s better than it ever has been. The version of me now is who I have always wanted to be. Authentic, honest, has boundaries, wears what makes her happy (including permanent ink which I’m getting more of next Thursday). Most importantly though, she is 100% genuinely happy and content with her life. And that’s because of what the younger version of me endured. She experienced all that she did so that one day I could learn from it. Learn what was most important to me and heal in a way that would allow me to keep what’s important up front and closest to my heart.

So, thank you younger Sarah. You walked so I could run.