The Thief of Joy

Me, 13 miles down, calling the mother ship.

I ran thirteen and a half miles today.

Okay, maybe “ran” needs a little explanation. Most people could walk that thirteen and a half miles as fast as I ran it. I averaged a 17:32 pace, persistently dropping one foot in front of the other up one hill, down the other, slowly developing a layer of salt sludge on my skin thick enough to write a message in with my fingernail. I’m fairly fluffy, not the svelte, graceful sort of runner most people picture running a half marathon alone on a random Sunday afternoon. For my long runs I wear a coral hydration vest with two twenty ounce bladders strapped down over my ample bosom, long straws poking up from the pockets on either side like antennae calling the alien mother ship. That way I can just turn my head and get a sip of water as I plod, but that’s after the two bottles I carry in my hands are finally empty. Toward the end of the race, as the bladders in the vest empty and there’s no liquid in them supporting the weight of the straws, they slump over and start to look like some crazy new mechanism for breast feeding. Of course that just adds to the sexiness of the wide brimmed floppy hat and Oakley Blade sunglasses I wear to help ward off migraines from the sun. 

I ran thirteen and a half miles today, but that run has an asterix on it. I wasn’t as fast as anyone else in the virtual race in which I was participating. And I looked ridiculous doing it.

My paying job is as an emergency department physician, but I work in a small community hospital and have for much of my career. I have been fortunate enough to save lives and to witness the gentle passing of others. I never take for granted the gift of trust that people give me every time I go to work. But I always qualify what I do when I tell people about it. “It’s just a small ER, not like the big hospital I worked in for a while.” 

“I’m a writer and a poet, but not many people read my work. My blog doesn’t even have a hundred followers yet. It’s not like I’m as good as... I’m working on a book, but…”

For me there is always a “but.” There is always a footnote on my achievements that explains their mediocrity as weighed against those of someone who I feel did it better. I allow myself only a tempered joy and rarely pride in my achievements.

As I ran today, I watched the Queen Anne’s lace sway in the gentle breeze and the bumblebees hop from one purple clover bloom to the next, and I thought about how they simply were. The simple soft purple clover pompom was no less an important part of it all than the intricate pattern of the Queen Anne’s lace. Surely one was not jealous of the other, felt no less a contributor to the ecosystem because of the contribution of the other. Each simply flourished in its own way and left others to do the same. Each blossom offered itself without apology.

Maybe I will begin to do the same. Maybe I will accept that I can stand proudly next to another who is thriving on her own journey and neither of us take away from the other. My accomplishments take nothing from hers. Hers nothing from mine. Comparison does nothing for either of us except steal what joy we might allow ourselves to feel as we find ourselves flourishing in the space we have cultivated as our own.

I ran a half marathon today. I am an emergency department physician. I am a writer, a poet, a force to be reckoned with. No footnotes here.