Running Myself Free

This month has certainly been a struggle.

From being sick and trying to write for NaNoWriMo, to dealing with my insecurities about my writing and getting rejected a couple of times, I have been on another wild roller coaster of emotion. I have written about my manic swings before. They are a constant. I wish they weren’t.

Maybe I am being too hard on myself. Maybe they aren’t as manic as I think they are. Too much childhood trauma of dealing with a manic-depressive who wouldn’t take their meds I think. I probably shouldn’t use such a strong word to describe how I feel sometimes. The low of depression and self-loathing. The high of accomplishment and self-confidence. But, I seriously think that those two levels can be wildly far apart. 

I try to elevate my mood by being positive and not wallowing in self-pity. I try to give myself the space I need. I sometimes fail at it, obviously, but I still try. I am starting to think Yoda is gonna start talking to me with all my use of “try” on these blog posts.

I don’t know if the running is helping. Getting healthy should be helping. It’s hard to judge. It’s all just part of the things I am doing to make myself better.

I feel like I need to read Haruki Murakami’s memoir, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.” Several writers have posted to twitter about this book influencing or reaffirming what running does for them. Right now, I don’t think I have it in me to run without using music and Zombies, Run. I do hope that next year, I won’t need them to get me to run.

At first, walking/running for 30 minutes every day was a way to lose weight and get healthy. Now, after seeing other writers using running as a way to create space for themselves (or a void, according to Murakami), I am wondering if I can do the same for myself. Turn running from something I have to do, to something I want to do. Something that will give me what I need to write and the endurance to finish. 

I don’t believe running will solve all of my problems, or free me from them, but I like the idea of running as metaphor for writing. Maybe if I gave myself the same 30 minutes for writing that I give to running, I might actually accomplish something. It’s certainly a thought.