I Ran Today

I ran today.

I didn’t want to, but I knew I needed it. It was hot, 97 degrees in the Texas Hill Country. Barely a cloud in the sky, with a blazing sun and higher humidity than normal. Too hot to be out running, truthfully, but I did it anyway.

I’m a streaky runner. Sometimes I log consistent miles, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months. The running comes easy. Its addictive. Not running when I’m in that groove is unthinkable. My legs feel strong, my footsteps light.

How can I call this running?!? I call that the shuffle of an out of shape fat ass. I shouldn’t even be allowed to own running shoes.

But then I fall off the proverbial path. One day off turns into two turns into fifty. Running fitness deteriorates quickly. A day or two probably isn’t noticeable and often, results in just the recovery I needed. Let it slip into a week or two and drop in pace, in endurance, is noticeable. A month? Forget it. I may as well have never thought of myself as a runner. I’m starting over. And its hard to get back on the path after a lay off like that.

Why don’t I quit before this run gets ugly? I’m going to kill myself out here.

The reality though, is more complicated. It isn’t just running that I haven’t wanted to do. It’s everything.

March and April, the explosion of the pandemic and implosion of the financial markets were a great period of time for me, professionally. The work, like when I’m running well, was easy. It was rewarding and I never wanted it to end. I work in a financial niche that’s only interesting, only noticed, when it’s hitting the fan. Volatile economic environments that threaten liquidity and safety of capital markets, that cause interest rates to gap out in ways no one expected…this is the blood that courses through the veins of my career. The rest of the time can be drudgery, but those six weeks were as close to professional bliss as I’ve felt since the financial crisis. The markets, however, even if grossly misguided, have stabilized.

Work is like serving time these days. I’m working on policy updates, controls, and dealing with a corporate hierarchy that spends more time planning to work than actually working. It’s a quagmire of corporate hell that is undoubtedly eroding the value of the franchise and the value of peoples’ resumes. Like a beached blue whale, its crushing me under its weight, a fish out of water desperately gasping for breath, unaware of how I got here but certain this isn’t what I was made for.

Its all a charade, an act, and one day I’ll be exposed for the fraud I am. I’m going to get fired and it’ll all come crashing down.

Then, not quite two weeks ago, we took the Eldest to university. I’m crazy proud of this kid, of who she is, her intellect, her values, her heart. For eighteen years we raised her, knowing this day would come, expecting that one day she would leave. Yes, she had good universities she could have chosen that wouldn’t have required her to leave home. Leaving home is part of the point though, part of the process of growth that allows a young person to develop into who they could be and so, she needed to go. I’m supportive of that choice, an advocate of that choice.

Yeah, I’ve done 3 miles…but I’ll never make it home.

And yet, I’m gutted. It is as if a part of my soul has been ripped, forcibly, from me. I explained to someone recently, the whole kid going off to college thing…the benefits all accrue to the kid, the losses all to the parents. I didn’t know. I didn’t realize. I have new found respect and admiration for all the parents who have done this before. I’ve been oblivious to their pain. And now I feel it. And I don’t want to do anything.

See? I’m walking now. I don’t have what I think I have. I’m all show.

When I say I don’t want to do anything, I don’t even want to do the things I normally like to do. I find myself constantly day dreaming of being somewhere else, doing something else. Dreaming of fishing trips, or hiking trips, or naps, or books, or playing golf. Anything but what I’m currently doing, regardless of what it is. None of the things, my reading, my writing, my work, my prayer life, none of it is what I want to be doing right now and even when I am doing something I was day dreaming about, I wish I was somewhere else.

The dead armadillo looks a lot like how I feel right now.

I do not feel like the husband and father I normally am and want to be. I do not feel like the son and brother my family deserves. It sometimes amazes me that I can keep the corporate charade going and the day they fire me might be unexpected, but it sure as hell won’t be a shock.

Yeah, I’ll suffer through the run…but I still suck.

And everything right now feels harder than it should be. It’s like I’m wearing cement shoes, like I have oven mitts duct taped onto both hands. It’s like I’ve been dropped in the center of a major international city in which I’ve never been in with nothing but Monopoly money, a Spanish version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and a live, wet ferret to see me through.

This is terrible and I don’t want to be out here…but I’m going to finish this run.

Lest you, dear reader, begin to worry. I am not without comfort, however. I am not without an inkling of hope. This isn’t uncharted territory for me. I’ve been here before. Like nearly everyone I know, whether they admit it or not, I’m no stranger to the darkness. But I know that though I may be in the darkness, the darkness isn’t in me. None of this is my story, none of this is my narrative. Yes, it’s all part of who I am, but I am more than this. I was made for more than this and this will pass, eventually.

I was made for more than this. I’m a child of God and this too will pass.

And so today, against my own will, against the self-critical, self-deceiving, self-abusing voice in my head, I got off the couch and put my running shoes on.

I walked outside into the Texas sun, and…

I ran today.