Running again

Part of learning to love running is learning to love your fellow runners. When you are in a race, others’ success is hinged to your own success. We help each other so much in a race. When you learn to see the others as your companions and buddies, and not as your competition – when you stop ranking everybody around you, judging everybody, then you really start to have fun. Either that, or you can more easily forget about them and run your own race.

I managed that today, in my 10k. Those ladies I kept leapfrogging with -- they would pass me I would pass them they would pass me --  at first I was judging them. Then I realized they were keeping me going. Then I thought, maybe I am keeping them going! And then I was so grateful for them, I stopped letting it bother me when they passed me. I internally cheered for them.They were running their race, I was running mine, and we were together. It was nice.

Tonight at a choir concert I played for, I had similar thoughts. In music, for me, it’s so much harder. It’s so hard to not sit there and start ranking people. To see others succeeding, in the limelight, and not judge them, want to tear them down, not to feel that somehow their success means there is less for me. Or that they are further ahead in life than I am, and to start making excuses for myself. I know it comes from weakness and insecurity. At some point in my life, I stopped resisting it, and just let the hate and the judgment and the resentment flow.

I’m actually glad I did that. I didn’t hold back. Maybe I did in my words to others, but not in my heart. I have very freely hated a lot of people who are most undeserving of my hate. I stopped stopping myself. And I think that’s made it easier to stop naturally. It feels better, actually, to rejoice in others’ talents and successes and beautiful music. But I don’t think I could have ever forced that on myself, the way I used to always force so many things – spirituality, emotions, ‘righteous’ behavior.

Tonight it was easy to watch my friends at the concert be awesome and to freely love their awesomeness, and the pure joy and love coming out in their music. It’s because of running. I started running for love, and that’s forging a path to start doing other things for love. To just set down the judgment, the anxiety, the insecurity, to just enjoy being a human in a body, and let the effort of moving forward be it’s own reason.