I’d written this weekend’s post in my head even before I sat down to physically write it. That’s what I do, and I believe most writers do; the ideas form, the story unfolds and sentences are created usually weeks before pen is put to paper. My stories unfold as I run, as I talk to others, as I hang the washing out, but mostly in those wonderful moments before I’m fully awake.
And today’s post was no different, until it was. I’d written all of it in my head, I’d finished most of my notes in my note pad (I love the physical action of writing, it’s very calming) remembered fondly some anecdotes that I thought might make you laugh, but today something didn’t feel right, the story I had pre-written in my mind didn’t feel like the one that wanted to be written. It’s a great subject and I know I am excited to write it at some point, but with 2 hours until my deadline, it just wouldn’t flow.
I sat, looking at the cursor impatiently blinking at me, my fingertips posed, ready for action on the home row of the keyboard. Yet, simply sitting in the silence allowed a tiny butterfly thought to float past in my mind’s eye. My original plan was to finish off the last few months of posts with this story of why running is so important to me, particularly through the lens of neurodiversity. I was going to talk about how hindsight was such a wonderful thing, how having a series of light bulb moments illuminates events, moments in time and how clear my own self-taught default coping strategies were now. I was excited to share at long last, all the unrelated, relentless chaos which now slotted together, bringing with it a sense of closure and understanding. And of course, how running weaved its magic way into this complex tapestry without me even realising.
That is all true, and it’s all a part of the reason why running, but, I realised as I followed the butterfly in my mind to it’s landing spot, it’s not the reason.
Running is one of the only things that I’ve ever stuck at. Of course I’m not including parenting or marriage in that because, once you start on those shiny new roads, you’ve got to continue. Except, you don’t really have to run, do you? No one is forcing you, society doesn’t frown upon you if aren’t a runner. If you don’t run, no one is going to die, (hopefully).
But despite my seeming inability to stick at anything, I’d stuck, voluntarily, to running for all these years. And from the vantage point I’m at now, I know that is because running wasn’t all about perfection or being perfect. And thank goodness for that, because of course, I am far from perfect. And yes, I know, no-one is perfect, it just seems at times to me, that other people and society admire perfection, often striving for it and are less than generous when mistakes are made and failure occurs.
But then I found running and I went down this shiny new trail, and this path has taken me to places that I didn’t know existed. Of course, it’s been a journey (I hate that phrase! why does it describe perfectly, well the journey!) but at long last I’d found something that complimented my idiosyncrasies’ and my light bulb moment was that running isn’t about perfection. For me running has given me the space to progress at my pace and my persistence (and I am persistent) has paid off. Running has been patient, generous and kind and, unlike “life”, has never been about achieving an immaculate ideal, a flawless form, or a picture-perfect race; there literally is no perfect way to run because running is about whatever matters the most to you as an individual.
And the thing I love about running the most is that it allows you to learn from your mistakes, because in running mistakes and failures are part of the growth. For me these mistakes are welcomed, celebrated and not something to avoid in a quest for perfection. I now realise that I thrive on this self-made safety net, that if I fail in a run, a race, a session, the resilience that I have subconsciously built up over many years has been finally tuned to pick myself up, literally dust myself down and get back out there and go again.
Some people can’t do that, mistakes and failures appear to be frowned upon in actual real life and this fear of mistakes and failures can really stop people from trying. I’m used to doing hard things, to finding things difficult, these feelings are normal for me, I was going to say like an old friend, but they are more like an annoying aunt who keeps popping round uninvited.
In my original article, I planned to share the “sandcastle” story with you to illustrate the differences between my husband’s perfectionism and my chaos. Ok, I’ll tell it anyway. My husband is good at sport, no, try again, my husband is excellent at sport. He can pick up a racket, a bat, a football, you name it, and he’ll excel. In fact, he’s naturally good at most things and I must admit, this annoys me a *bit (*quite a lot). Anyway, I go to the local sandpit a lot (with my grandchildren, I’m not a weirdo!) when I look after them on a Friday afternoon, and each week I attempt to build them a sandcastle.
I’m not quite at the stage where I have my own bucket and a spade but as soon as I get there, I begin to fill the bucket up with sand and each week, as hard as I try, I can’t seem to get the sandcastles to come out whole, there’s always a turret that has collapsed, I’m nearly there, just not quite. At times I have to remember how old I am, I get so engrossed in my sandcastle attempts that I forget to play with the children.
Jamie came with us the other week. He started to fill a bucket with sand, I watched him in silence as both grandchildren stood statue still, waiting in eager anticipation. In my head I willed his sandcastle to collapse as he carefully tapped the bottom of the bucket before the big reveal but FFS, of course, it came out perfectly, and then he did another, perfect, and another, all perfect… until he had his own fucking housing estate of sandcastles. My grandson told him he was amazing, I muttered something, then my granddaughter ran over and squashed them all in 5 seconds flats- that’s my girl, I thought.
I had planned to talk about the many significant benefits that running offers neurodiverse individuals, and I weave in examples of all those positives have on mental, emotional and physical challenges that we can all overcome if we just run. But you’ve heard all that before, and as I said, I wasn’t feeling it and so instead I made a cup of tea. As the kettle boiled my mind paced back over the out of the blue encounter I had had that morning, it was such an insignificant moment that I almost lost its significance.
I had been running hard hill reps and I’d stopped at the summit of the hill, breathless and sweaty when I turned to recover back down the hill. A woman was walking up towards me, her dog out in front, nothing unusual about that. I smiled at the dog, obviously. She stopped to talk to me, this was unusual… “Are you training?” she asked. I took my headphone out, “Yes” I said, barely able to breathe, “effort up, recovery back down”. She came to a standstill, she really wanted to talk. “Are you Verity?” she asked. A bit random but, “Yes”, I replied, still only able to manage one-word answers. She looked straight at me ,“You don’t recognise me, do you?” To be fair I didn’t, but the closer I looked the more her face was familiar…. I quickly raked my brain to try and remember her, do I know her from runner or teaching? But I couldn’t place her. “I’m Jane”, she prompted. I caught my breathe, “From school?” I couldn’t believe it, because this NEVER happens. Why would it, my school days were up North many years ago and miles away. “Wow” I said, we chatted for a bit, caught up, it was nice, it felt good seeing her.
I resumed the hill session, returning home nonchalantly texting my oldest friend James, telling him of the funny coincidence. He laughed and sent back the recent picture of Jane with the group of cool kids from school, she’d already mentioned when we spoke how she’d just met up with those friends that very weekend, she reeled off their names, there they were in the picture, I remembered them all, they were the peers who had galloped off in the distance, leaving me feeling as “an also ran”. She also told me of how they’d spoken of James and me. I replied to James’s text, I’m glad I was seen powering up those hills today! And I thought nothing more of it.
That was until I allowed the passing butterfly thought to settle, Why Running? Because running makes me feel, strong, confident and safe. Running has let me grow, it has allowed me to shred the narrative that I wasn’t good enough, and rather than an “also ran” that, ironically, being an actual runner has filled the hole. When I’ve failed, time and time again, the failures were honoured and recognised and that enabled growth. Each mistake was learnt from and slowly, over time, because the change was barely noticed, I learnt to accept, to love, to feel confident and self-assured, in front of someone who, (and it wasn’t her, it was me and my insecurities), that in the past had made me feel not enough and not part of the cool girl gang. But more than that, it was the fact that the moment almost passed me by, this is more significant than the fleeting meeting, and that’s why I run.
