Talking Trauma
August 30, 2009
When a person has been through a traumatic experience, it takes awhile before he or she is ready to talk about it. Hence the silence regarding my half marathon.
Two weeks ago I rode a bus at 5 am to Point Loma where I disembarked and hung out while the other eight thousand four hundred people were also bussed up there in the dim light of the sun rising. It might have been beautiful, but we were so packed, like San Diego sardines, that I was too busy wondering at the trust people exhibited, sitting on blacktop doing the pretzel while people milled around them. My faith in humanity was renewed as I saw not one person step on or trip over these trusting souls. But, I completely missed the view.
Oh, and I was busy trying to figure out who I might be able to beat. But those of you who have done this sort of race know, it’s hard to tell. Everyone worried me.
Of course, I wasn’t competing, NO! I was running to be able to say that I completed a half-marathon. In record time, for me.
Except I had already completed a half-marathon. Granted, it was was 25 years ago, another lifetime ago, but still. So, while waiting for dawn to break and the starting gun to go off, and that obnoxious man with the bull horn to stop reminding me to pre-hydrate, I wondered what exactly I was doing there.
Every time I looked at my shoe, with the paper with my name, age and sex on it, staring me in the face (the claim is that this is how they track your time but I’m convinced this is how they identify the body) and the number 43 laughed at me (not my name or my sex), I wondered what exactly I was doing there.
The fact that my friend talked me into it had something to do with it. She convinced me we weren’t worried about our times, just finishing. When we practiced together, she even stopped early, claiming her knee hurt, tricking me into thinking I needn’t worry.
Then at mile eleven, she ditched me. Maybe because I waved her on, being the good friend that I was. I kept thinking – okay hoping - that her knee was going to start to hurt and I would catch her before the finish line. But I didn’t. She’s so … what’s that word that starts with a B … better at uphills than I.
Then I got to the finish line and collected my medal, one of eight thousand four hundred passed out, and looked for my friend. I found her and asked her time.
She beat me by three minutes. THREE minutes in two miles. I consoled myself, looking back at me shoe to remind myself of my age. swinging my medal around victoriously, not at all aiming for my friend and felt totally … what’s that word that starts with a F …. finished.
This week I will wear my accomplishments proudly, like a headband with the medal in the middle of my forehead!
