In truth, I was guarding my own hopes. If I told no one, it wasn’t real. This small victory was my imaginary friend. I could cling to it regardless of where the jogging thing went.
***
After my first successful day of jogging, I waited the suggested two days to pull on my trail shoes. I had long since discarded my old running shoes. I owned Velcro tennis shoes, but didn’t want to feel like the middle-aged grandmother I am, so I chose shoes that lace up. Despite my graying temples and upper lip lines, I have the heart of a curly-haired three-year-old. Perhaps running was a way back to her.
The sweatpants had been too bulky, so I dug out the bell-bottom tights I used to wear at Nia, a dance class I’d taken in a previous attempt to lose weight and reduce mood swings. With spandex containing my thighs, at least my bottom half felt athletic. But no amount of ab work can tone away poor posture. My slouch embarrassed me even when I was at my smallest adult weight. I covered my midsection with two layers.
When I accidentally hit the button on the timer, Morgan, who’d been sleeping calmly at the opposite end of the house, sprinted over. Grateful for his company, I leashed him and headed back to the secluded ravine.
As we walked, I remembered my breathless gasps as I’d pounded my way around the track at a health club twenty years before. I stopped and looked down at the timer in my hand. That first jog had been a fluke. I’d never make it out of the ravine. Running was for younger, skinnier people.
As if they’d heard me, Kim and Fiona’s comments filled my head and my eyes dampened.
I’d stood in one spot long enough that the dog had wandered away to sniff a purple crocus. I pulled him back and got the stink eye.
“I need you,” I said. He rolled his eyes as if to say, “I’m waiting!”
We began, but I started too fast and was bouncing. Instinctively, I knew every part of my body should move forward rather than up and down. I tried to keep my feet and center of gravity close to the ground. This was more comfortable. Sixty seconds was almost enjoyable. The dog walking beside me paid no attention. When the timer went off, my breath was quick, but not so rapid that I thought I might have a heart attack. I imagined myself running more.
***
At the end of the next run interval, I pulled the dog up short. We’d come to the top of the ravine hill. The gaping windows of the houses on the street glared at us. The dog faced me, then sat.
Part of me knew no one was watching. What ought to have been an easy decision was, for me, an epic struggle. I’ve heard minds like mine described as a ghetto. You shouldn’t spend much time there without backup.
From decades of facing various phobias, I knew that whatever I ran from would trap me, constricting my world. If I stayed in the ravine, I might never go beyond week one of the training plan. I wanted to give running a decent shot. The dog stood and turned to face the open neighborhood.
Instead of heading back, we jogged up the street where, if they had been looking, which they probably weren’t, my neighbors might see me waddling slowly enough that the dog didn’t notice I’d changed my gait. I focused straight ahead so I wouldn’t see the neighbors not staring as we passed house after house. “Look at me jogging in public!” my inner three-year-old cried. When the timer signaled our walk break, you’d have thought I’d run a marathon. Breathing hard was fabulous. I held my head high. The dog sniffed a signpost and peed on it.
***
Morgan and I completed the three identical workouts of week one. I wasn’t as breathless or tired as I’d been the first two days and considered a nap, but didn’t need one.
Napping is a barometer of my mental health. My alcoholic mother was a well-practiced napper, a skill I didn’t appreciate until my own depression made it a necessity. When I don’t nap, I feel less like a drain on society, since at least I’m awake during daylight hours. I’m not usually physically tired. Rather, daily living exhausts me mentally. Worn down by the fight, when the bed calls, I succumb. While my newfound jogging wouldn’t have been a huge challenge by most athletes’ standards, I counted a victory when, after this first week, I didn’t nap.
***
The second week of the training plan increased the “jogging” from sixty seconds to ninety. Since it was gradual, the increase didn’t freak me out.
Real runners might take offense at the plan’s use of the word “jogging.” Not me. “Jogging” was still faster than lying in bed. Plus, if it had said “running,” I’d have imagined sprinting and been intimidated. “Running” reminded me of my previous failed attempts. Jogging implied ease and comfort. My couch-potato body and easily frightened brain liked this. “Just a little jog,” I told the dog. No need to panic.
We went for our little jog. Like the first week, I thought of the people in their houses possibly laughing at me in my oversized T-shirt and spandex bell bottoms with the dog walking beside. But I pushed the thoughts away and continued, challenged, but successful.
After the first day of week two, I again needed a nap, but on the second day, I didn’t. I went home, changed into regular clothes, since I barely broke a sweat, and went on with my day. After the third day, I had more energy. This surprised me. In my previous running days, when I ran before work, I’d have to close my office door and take a power nap before starting the day. What I was doing now seemed completely different. I was still napping on the days when I wasn’t exercising, but it was an improvement. My friend Kim had called running “fun.” I almost agreed with her.
Despite my success, I still had to talk myself into every workout. Feelings of dread plagued me, while a tyrannical inner voice mocked. “Look at you in your ‘workout’ clothes, pretending to exercise. Save yourself the embarrassment and play computer solitaire instead.” Rejecting those voices and working out anyway renewed my sense of self-esteem and accomplishment. I almost enjoyed it, especially once we had finished.
After I completed week two, I was ready to tell Ed. By then, he and I had been married for almost two decades. Ed, my best friend and confidant, has the brains and motivation. I have the harebrained ideas. When I decided we should move to New Mexico so I could study writing with Natalie Goldberg, Ed eagerly accepted the challenge. When I wanted to turn our basement into a meditation studio, Ed moved the furniture. And when I wound up in the psych ward on the weekend after our first wedding anniversary, a surprise that might have made other men flee, Ed didn’t falter. Through pastels, piano lessons, dance classes, dog training, and weird diets, not to mention enough types of therapy to fill an encyclopedia, Ed remained by my side. Still, I feared telling him because of how much I value his opinion.
He and I sat in our galley kitchen, at the rectangular table, eating the Italian sausage and lentils he’d prepared. Thankfully, he loves to cook. If he didn’t, we’d starve. I open cans, operate the microwave, and wash the dishes, but because of my inability to focus, when I cook, the fire alarm usually goes off. Once, I even warped a pressure cooker. Ed prefers I not cook so I don’t ruin his expensive pans.
His long-sleeved, red button-down matched his brown and red oxfords. The red collar against his clear, fair skin made it glow. He’d rolled the shirt cuffs up, exposing his muscular forearms, which flexed when he reached for his fork.
I looked out the picture window to our tree-lined street where I’d been secretly jogging. Our oak had begun to bud, pushing the previous year’s leaves onto the still brown grass.
“I started running again,” I said.