Just a couple more days to graduation. Amina mentions she has a crush on someone. Careless comment. If she only knew. I hid the wrenching inside me and talked a lot to detach, gave her puppy love my blessing and after a while I even started feeling better.
I left her at a new downtown coffeeshop to go running. I jogged home, changed and stretched and hit the road at running pace. Not a smart idea since my knee still hasn't fully recovered from over-extending it doing a side-kick on the bag in the Asia House basement. I’ve been trying to nurse the knee up to strength and it’s been hard, but for some reason I have to run or I get antsy.
I didn’t care. Adrenalin was pumping from the moment I left the coffeeshop. I hit a stride and pushed to maintain it. I passed two discarded beer bottles and kept going, don’t stop. I headed off on a course that I considered my long course which I haven’t been able to do for a while. I arbitrarily decided to end in front of Old Barrows. Old B., Amina’s dorm. It suddenly became the most important run of my life and I couldn’t stop until I got to the end. When my knee started bothering me, I slowed down but pushed on. Then my ankles started aching and I started thinking about my shin-splints from high school track. They say you never get rid of shin-splints. Which is OK as long as you never lose the fire.
I believe in reciprocal, circular love. Loving yourself is the most important element of loving someone else. Selfishness as a form of giving. So why did I keep running after it started to really hurt? Some element is missing. In the sea of love, there are no shores. The only hope is to give up your life.
But not even Amina is crushing me, humbling me. Is she here to teach me something? I think I’ve missed the lesson. And as running goes, things come, things pass, things go. Time is paced and you don’t stop.
