And so I started running again. The beginning was tentative, and I don't know why. I had run for many years, since 16 when I grew overweight and my health-conscious parents got worried about me. I shuffled my way around the track with my father and all the while disliking myself intensely. Yet all the way through to when I was 20, I didn't stop, I was sweating it out in my baggy, shapeless outfits around the field at 6 in the morning when the entire school ground was quiet still in its slumber. I went round and round the field, and looked at the sea over the cliff edge when I could, I wished for fitness, for physical beauty, for peace of mind and for health, and learned more and more about myself.
Then later, I started the next stage of my self-discovery in dance, then I had not looked back, yet regretfully, I neglected running as I enjoyed dancing so tremendously that I gave it, and my college work, all the energy that I could master in me.
A few weeks ago, I remembered the joy of crossing the line at the end of my Marathon, my very personal Everest, and I pulled on my Asics running shoes - the ones that saw me through the pain in the Marathon - and headed outside onto the heath. I ran aimlessly, without venturing into Greenwich park which is adjacent to the heath, as I wasn't sure if I was going to be fast enough to make it home in time to get ready for work. I got the aches back into my legs and felt like I was born again. The next moring, I went into the park, when down the hill and back up the hill right round the park, and though I was working hard to catch my breath, I realised that I am indeed, home. With a new job that I was still trying to figure out, though by now I have figured it out and realised that it is not for me, though I have yet to really decide where to go next, I am doing my best for a company that has treated me well, with humour, humanity and friendship, but I know that it is not for me. It is not hardwork that I fear, it is hardwork for things that interest me not that is many folds worse. Yet in situations like that, I am given the opportunity to learn even more about myself, and nothing is a more powerful weapon, then thorough self knowledge.
You won't like everything that you learnt, but it will arm you, it will cloth you.
And all the while, I have my dancing, the more importantly, I have my running still. Every morning, I pulled on my shoes with such a sense of gratitude that it is hard to put into words just how thankful I am, I fasten the arm band with my ipod in it onto my upper arm, I pull on my running cap, gone are the baggy clothes and are now replaced by fitted, stretchy clothing that serves runners so well, I headed out in the wind, in the drizzle, in the intense heat and sunshine, with Eminem/The Doors/Nirvana/White Stripes... etc yelling into my ears. Very often I tune into The Muse's Butterflies and Hurricane, and let them say to me, "Best, you got to be the best, and use this chance to be heard, your time is now..." And sometimes, with Frank Sinatra's "My Way" to see me home and onto another day.
