a few days ago i took this postpartum body out for a run. i flirted with running last week, just to show this old girl she could, but on saturday, it was officially run number one.
i took myself along a road i have driven, biked, walked, and ran before but, despite it’s familiarity, it all felt different. my body felt different, my breath felt different, my mind. in all fairness, i guess it is.
when i was 23, i moved from montreal to the edge of vancouver island, to a little sleepy town i had often visited and had lived in once before, and now, 10 years later and after having left again to pursue different dreams, i was back, returning to connect with my husband’s family over the holidays and hopefully with myself, too.
we come back often, as you do when you love a place and the people that make it so, and so i am no stranger to the area. i felt it though, while running, that something had shifted.
it’s not just my perception, i don’t think. a tremendous amount has changed since i first lived here- not just structurally, as the town has expanded multifold, but i have transformed too, as has my life alongside. there are the obvious changes that can’t be missed- i come back now with a partner and with two sons that our union has produced- but there are other aspects altered, as well. unlike the town, my changes don’t always feel expansive, however.
i am older now, you see, and my pace on the side of the road doesn’t allow for me to pretend that i’m not. my body, riddled with scar tissue and stretch marks, has broken down some- sports injuries and car wrecks have caught up with my joints and i am less fluid in motion.
my spirit has aged too- i am no longer full of maybe dream lives brewing, bubbling and bursting in me- i live that ‘maybe’ now- and having arrived where i’m supposed to be i don’t behave as though every interaction, moment, or choice might bring me to one of those potential possibilities. i don’t question what might be constantly, i am not as thirsty, and i’m not reckless with my acquaintances, money, love, or time. and, though this is responsible, it is also less exciting and i find that with less chaos and with more intimacy in my life, i have also become more insular, less connected with much outside of my wee world- sometimes not out of preference, but out of necessity.
i’m pretty sure that it’s for this reason that my love of running has not changed, despite my body’s resistance and my deteriorating performance. i see things differently when i’m running. i think differently. i dream and create opportunities in my head differently, or at all. it’s all forward running, no circles, and i notice what is present, and what is absent. i notice me. on saturday, i noticed others too, people i know from former lives, and i noticed that they have apparently also aged. and though this unfortunately confirms that time does not wait for anyone, it also highlights that life is, indeed, advancing in some linear way, regardless that i sometimes doubt that this is true for me.
since, i’ve taken my shoes to the beach a few times and felt my lungs, head, and heart open up. i like who i am at the end of a run, i like who i might become. i’m gonna keep it up. lots, actually. stay tuned.
mother your business 