Running Prowess
I ran a 7k in 41min 43 secs last weekend. Was aiming for 45. Super chuffed. Really proud…until, person I work with who I also saw running, ran (for the first time, mind) in 43 mins something. First thought,…even though I ran a great time for me, even though I like this other runner, first thought, “man, something else I don’t excel at. Something else, to mark me out as ‘not special.’ Ok, a trier, but, myah – there’s plenty better, plenty worse.” (just an aside, I hope this blog doesn’t reveal me to be a deeply depressed, a-touch sociopathic – or at least emotionally moribund, nut-job :: E!THS dreams on a disease-of-the-week budget).
Anyway, point is, and it made me think on the way to wok this a.m. “maybe that’s why people have kids (not the only reason) but you’re practically making your own fan club by giving birth. How much more special can you be, with everyone saying how motherhood is the most important job in the world, fatherhood – well, you don’t not what it is to be human until you hold that child in your hands and it looks in your eyes and, you know, y’know, you know that this little human being is the reason you exist”. Not so useful if you’ve not been born with a maternal bone, nor instinct, nor wisp of want. What’s to make me special if not the conventional route (love, babies, home, friends, etc).
Related aside: I read a quote from the Talmud years ago, to wit “A person will be called to account on Judgment Day for every permissible thing he might have enjoyed but did not” I’ll wager that I may be called to account for a lot. Worse, I fear that someone will just wave me through, and I’ll spend eternity under the radar. That would mean I’m in hell. I don;’t think I’m nearly special enough to warrant that. And there in lies my annoying contradictory nature that I will be tracking on this journalling journey.
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