Look Up

Today after school the cross country team bussed it out to Tualitin Hills. Matching in green jerseys, short shorts, and golden racing shoes, like every meet. Watching varsity race, warming up, striding across the grass field was unsettling and didn't help to lift the dread from the pit of my stomach. Sooner or later I found myself among dozens of teenage bodies, with more or less miles under their belt than I have.

Bang.

I start out fast. Although I've been discouraged, I can't help but hold on to a little bit of hope that something will fill me and help me to fly. I think of my love and my pain - my friends, my sweet sisters, everything that's gone on in the past year - everything that's inspired me in the past.

One by one, however, runners pass me. And I do nothing to stop them. If anything, my steps move slower. It's true that the odds are against me based on my recent training, but I am physically capable of beating them all. But that's not the decision I make. I just can't be motivated. Eventually I make it to the finish line, and instead of following the other athletes staggering back to the Jesuit tent, I make my way to the woods. I duck under the roped-off boundaries and walk until I'm out of sight - there, I sit down and hold my head in my hands and cry.

This is not about running.

I don't know how to explain myself except that nothing that I do feels completely right. And so much of what I say and do reflects someone I don't want to be. It's just too much.

"Nothing to fight, nothing to choose
maybe it's good, learning to lose..."
[Jason Robert Brown]

posted by Allison Francis @ 9:41 PM