Sometimes you just have to run. Or, well, sometimes I do. I discovered running when I was a freshman in college. My college didn’t really suit me so well. It ended up being fine but sometimes I do think that if I had it to do again I would have done it differently. I would have taken my mother’s sage advice to take a year off between high school and undergrad and gone and worked on a farm. I would have used the time to really think about what I wanted out of my college experience rather than just going along with something that was expected of me. It’s not that I regret it, really, because had I chosen differently I wouldn’t be here now and I wouldn’t have done the things I’ve done, met the people I’ve met and learned the things I’ve learned. Sure, I would have done different things, met different people and learned different things but I guess I am happy with the end result. I am happy, generally, with who I am. The process, though, could have been fine-tuned. Even still I feel, overall, thankful and content.
But then there are those other days.
There are those other days when all I want is this thing that I have daydreamed about for as long as I can remember. This might sound insane but I have always wanted a spare room with brick walls, no windows and lots of glass items. I have wanted some safety goggles and maybe some sort of a suit that would protect me from flying shards. And then I have wanted to take those glass items and hurl them as hard as I possibly could across the room and just watch them shatter everywhere. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to break shit. I just want to have 10 minutes every once in a while, when the build-up of impatience and let down and frustration and confusion becomes so intense that I just want to scream but instead I could lock myself in my brick-walled room and just fuck shit up. And then I would take a deep breath, call in a cleaning crew (because in this daydream I would have them on speed dial and I would be able to afford their services) and I would go back to my normal life as if nothing happened. No tears. No pillow punching. Just a lot of broken glass, a sore arm from the force behind the throw and a better outlook.
Unfortunately that is not in the cards for me at the moment and so instead I run.
I have been, over the past few weeks, nearing that breaking point where I need the glass. I have been maybe not taking the best care of myself. Eating too many omelets and scrambled eggs because I am too lazy too cook something legit. Watching too many episodes of Gossip Girl. Today I hit sort of an apex of frustration with stuff and thought that maybe what I needed was to just go out, have a bunch of drinks, pass out like a sad sack and worry about it all tomorrow. But I did the thing that I do, which is that I thought about how that would make me feel in the morning so instead I went for a run. I ran by the water and there was, at that moment, nothing that could have been better than feeling the sun on my skin after a long and cold winter, feeling the cool breeze coming off the water and smelling the wonderful smell of salt water. I couldn’t help but smile as I ran by the men with their fishing rods set up to catch whatever it is that swims there. I didn’t even have an ill-fantasy about one of them casting without looking properly and accidentally snaring my eyeball which was, I have to say, a first for me. I had one of those moments where I honestly felt like I could run forever. My legs felt, I don’t know, springy. It was like they just knew that they had to shut down the exhaustion and the soreness and the heaviness that sometimes aflicts them when I hit the double digit miles and just go with it because there is no room of glass (yet) and there are not enough drinks in the world to calm me the way a run can when everything is just right.
In those moments when I think about the decisions I made in the past and maybe start slipping towards regret, I try to think about some of the positive things that happened as a result of those decisions that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. There is always something. Always. On top of the friends I made, the abroad trip I never would have gone on otherwise, my decision to move to the city and into an apartment with my best friend in the world, and all the other things that I just don’t want to bore you with, I found running. And honestly, had I not I wouldn’t be half the person I am today. And I would be a hell of a lot drunker.
franklyrebekah 
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