Last night I was dreaming about running.
In the first segment, I was just trying to run, really run, for the first time since I was a pre-teen. I was in an ex-urb, just trying to run around a cul-de-sac on the sidewalk. Though the ground was flat, I couldn\’t make it past the length of more than a few houses. I collapsed onto the ground and struggled to push myself back up. My arms were wiggling like jelly, and my extremities were blue. A police officer got out of his vehicle and walked up to me. I couldn\’t see his face, but I could see his boots and uniform. He asked me what I was doing. I said I was just trying to go for a run. He said I was acting suspicious and that I was going to scare people, and to cut the crap and get up. But I couldn\’t. I was having a whatever-it-is, an episode or whatever, those things that I get when I overdo it physically. He kicked me in the ribs and I blacked out.
When I woke up I was in a field, like the kind in the park near my parent\’s house where I used to play when I was a kid. This one hadn\’t been mowed for quite a while, though, so no one was there playing soccer. The grass was up to my knees. I found a path that had been mowed in an oval shape around the field, just like a running track. As soon as I stepped into it, I got pushed over by a runner who I couldn\’t see before I stepped into the track. Then another, and another. People of all types were running around on the track, ignoring everyone else so they could just keep running. I had to run with them, or have an allergy attack out in the overgrown field, so I started to run. At first it felt amazing as the adrenaline kicked in, but soon I started to feel like molten jelly again. I pressed on, but my body slowed; it was like trying to run in the water, though everyone around me was running just fine on the track. I veered my path and ran off, away from the people, and into the woods.
I ended up in the open space in my grandparent\’s basement. I was young again, maybe seven or eight. It was raining outside, and so my family wouldn\’t let me go outside to play. Instead, I just ran circles around and around the tiled floors of the basement. I ran until I was dizzy, then I about-faced and ran in the other direction. My equilibrium was caught off guard and I fell over, but instead of turning black and blue or pulling a muscle, I laughed and started to mimic Snoopy\’s Flash Beagle. My mom yelled at me to stop trying to spin on my head on the hard floor. I knew that when I grew up, my mom wouldn\’t be able to tell me what to do anymore, and I could spin on my head and run around as much as I wanted, so I was happy.
That was my dream.
I woke up trying not to cry this morning. I miss being able to run. I miss blisters on my hands from working the parallel bars all afternoon. I miss the thud-thud-oomph-splat of running toward the springboard and tossing my body vertically into the air over a vault twice my size. I miss flips, round-offs, handsprings, and tearing open the blisters from the bars while working on the floor. I miss my toes grasping the corners on the balance beam and the feel of the chalk between my palms and the leather when cartwheeling off the end. I even miss the leotard disappearing halfway up my ass while doing front splits.
I miss getting sacked as a quarterback and the feel of heavy bodies piling on top of mine while I hold on tight to the pigskin. I miss the burn in the back of the arm after pulling back and letting loose an off the hook throw — whether it be a football or a softball or a baseball. I miss the days when pushing my physical limits meant doing 100 sit ups in 60 seconds, and not walking around the block with a full grocery bag. I miss sweat — my sweat, sweat in the eyes and soaked through my clothes, and how good it feels to have it dry on your skin during a hot day with no breeze. I miss seing hard muscle in the mirror and knowing that I can kick the ass of any boy who approaches me or any of my friends. I miss winning the co-ed wrestling matches and the groan of the boy under me when I pin him to the mat.
I miss my body. Goddamn. This vessel that my mind is in — this cannot really be the same one as ten years ago, can it? It\’s not truly the same body, is it? It\’s not mine. The body I know — my body — is strong and up to any challenge. It relishes the sprint on the last 25 meters. It laughs in the face of charlie horses. This — whatever I am in now — is the body of some soft old lady, sagging and in constant pain. This isn\’t my body.
I miss feeling physically alive.
