Running. Feeling. Instinct.

This blog is far from a place to divulge my every passing thought, for they are many, and for the most part, pretty retarded.

However, it does seem to catch the big, continuous themes, and provides a relieving solution to the obstacle of experiencing feelings I am unable to process internally. Whatever it is about writing, whether it's a conversation with someone else, or in this case, just with yourself, I can only think of one better way to process and understand your own thoughts and motivations without involving anyone else.

I don't know what I'd do without running. It began towards the end of my last long-term relationship, where I found it an escape from the feelings of guilt and limitation I was feeling as we realised it wasn't quite going to work long-term. Then, when I ended the relationship and the guilt continued, I ran through that. I ran so much I lost a lot of weight and didn't have periods for a year and a half. Then I started eating again, and took to binge eating whenever I felt sad. I still struggle with this a little now, but it's getting better. I run to counterbalance the odd slip-up. I shall continue to run to counterbalance the odd overindulgence. I run to escape the stresses of work, to feel proof of the simple power of my own person, to be calm. I run for joy, when the weather is good and I want to celebrate. But the overall sentiment of running in any of these circumstances has been because it is how I deal with emotion. Sometimes writing it down isn't enough.

When my sister was diagnosed with Breast Cancer this time last year, when she went through her treatment, realised she and her husband might not be able to have children, when her husband's liver began to pack up and he died of a heart attack, the shock was unspeakable.

I have said before, that there were never two people less deserving of such horrendous misfortune. For their young marriage and infinite future to be halted so suddenly and shockingly, then dragged out in this nightmarish sequence has cast all this world in a different light forever. I adored them together, and looked to their solidity, love and happiness as a role model for my own life. I am still struggling to conceive how meaningless this all is, and how strong my sister is.

But I don't think I would have been able to make sense of my own feelings at all without running. It is the only time I truly let my thoughts wander and thus the only time my emotions creep up on me, and wash over me like a sudden wave.

Granted, what with yesterday's admission of my tearful breakdown at work, it was hardly surprising today when, just at the thought of my poor brother-in-law, and how maybe if, just a year ago today, I had seen the signs, if one of us had seen the signs, we might have stopped it all happening, I was overcome with tears when running. This doesn't happen an awful lot, but when it does, I can't breathe, I just keep moving my legs and sobbing, and it eventually gets out, whatever it's been.

It's spring, the sun is warm and the earth is filled with shoots. People are behaving differently, frivolously, happily. But I am dwelling a little on this guilt. Was it my place, as an outsider to my sister's marriage, to be able to see something, or say something?

I guess we felt it coming. It is like Spring hasn't been in two years, because last year there was something heavy weighing on the back of my mind. My mother confessed she felt the same, that she wanted to hold onto my sister's things, or have her near. I felt something ominous. Of course, even when my sister told us about the cancer, we didn't connect that instinct. It was only with hindsight this occurred.

Then, why couldn't I learn that the same grim feelings, those awful signs were prescience to my brother-in-law's struggle. The last time I saw him, I had to climb on the sofa and give him an awkward hug. It was just what instinct told me to do. That was a Friday, and on the Monday he died. It was too late then, but perhaps something might have been done? I will always have this guilt.

At the risk of this becoming maudlin, I return to the simple point of what I'm saying. I wasn't able to see this, to do anything to stop the bad things happening, but the instinct was there. The instinct is there when I run and when I take time to let emotion run it's course. I think perhaps if people trusted their emotional leanings a little more, made time for them to evolve outside the distractions of everyday busy lives, perhaps we could learn a lot from ourselves and not miss the things that are really, most important.

It doesn't seem to be a process we can perform logically, or even design. We can understand our feelings with CBT or sensible therapies, but if we don't allow ourselves time to feel them in the first place, what is the chance of being happy?

Running is the only place I feel safe to do that, because like most other people, my emotions are the most powerful part of who I am. I need my own safe space to feel them, and motion helps me work them through.