Depression Hates a Moving Target. Nita Sweeney

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СКАЧАТЬ out to complete day one of week 5A. I huffed and puffed. This was difficult AND I was doing it.

      When it was time for the final five-minute jog, I was back to the steep hill at the edge of the ravine. Burning bush glowed with the fresh green of spring. Dogwoods and redbuds would soon bloom. The world would be beautiful if I made it up this hill.

      Even at a slow jog, my breath came in rasps. The dog pulled and the distance between us tugged at my heart. I slowed, caught my breath, and began to jog again, closing the distance between the dog and me. Never mind that he was walking; I wasn’t going to let him beat me to the top. I dug deep, and we crested the hill together. I looked at the timer. Three minutes still to go.

      “Walking is not a failure,” I told the dog, and let my heart rate slow. The rest of the street was still uphill, but more gradual. At the stop sign, I resumed jogging. “We can do this,” I told Morgan. He nodded, or maybe shook a bug off his ear. Panting again, I slowed to what must have looked like a crawl to the people not watching from their houses. I passed one house, then another, turned a corner and passed more. Stucco house. Siding house. Brick house. Maple tree. Crabapple. Dogwood. Tiny buds would soon flower. One more minute. Eight more seconds. Then the sweet beep.

      Day one of week 5A, done. “Whoop! Whoop!” I yelled, startling the dog. I patted him and gave myself a mental pat, too.

      ***

      As a new runner, I’d been blissfully unaware that some faster runners resent slower people. But one night, as I scrolled through the Penguin Forums, I read, “You slow runners are pathetic. If I ran as slow as you did, I’d shoot myself.” The condescension turned my stomach. “I reported you to the moderators,” I replied.

      The troll responded by using my account photo to clone my account by adding one letter to the end of my name. I’d naively used my real name, and a photo of me with Mr. Dawg as my avatar. The troll wrote critical posts about other members of the forum under this new account which, at a brief glance, looked like mine. He also looked up my Twitter account and website and criticized those. The forum moderators took down the troll’s comments and account, but the troll continued. From then on, I didn’t engage, but simply clicked the “report abuse” button. I also changed my username, password, and photo. But I didn’t leave.

      The troll claimed that anyone not placing in their age groups shouldn’t race. He complained of having to dodge slow runners who mistakenly started too far in front. I hadn’t raced, so I didn’t know the norms, but these comments made me even more reluctant. Some Penguins talked about being asked to move to the sidewalk, being picked up in a vehicle because they were too slow, or finishing last. I doubled down on my intent to only run in private, with the dog, through the streets of our neighborhood.

      ***

      Toward the end of July, in an email exchange, I finally told my sister about running. I qualified it with the fact that I was interspersing walking and hadn’t yet run an entire thirty minutes.

      Since 2007, the year her daughter, our mother, my father-in-law, and her ex-husband died, Amy and I have texted each other every day. Like my husband, she has seen me through the trials of mental illness. I’ve seen her through divorce, her own depression, and the death of her only child. We cling to each other like survivors of an emotional shipwreck. Time passed, and I forgot I’d told her. She walks her dog and swims, but never expressed interest in sports beyond the Ohio State University Buckeyes.

      Just when I had recommitted to never running in public, she emailed a link to the first annual Steps for Sarcoma 5k. It would raise money for research to combat osteosarcoma, the type of cancer that had killed my niece. Amy was walking the one-mile fun walk.

      “Would you run the 5k?” she asked.

      “Oh, no,” I wrote. “Running is a private thing.”

      I didn’t think of this as a cop-out. I really didn’t think I could bear being seen running in public. Plus, my ankle still swelled intermittently.

      But each time I went out to jog, thoughts of my niece’s death nearly suffocated me.

      Jamey had been a runner. Until she was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in her femur, she thought the pain in her leg was a running injury. If she were still alive, she would be running. Even after her leg was amputated, she tried to wear a prosthetic limb, hoping to run again.

      I had told my sister I wouldn’t participate, but held it in the back of my mind.

      My training and the Penguins forum buoyed my confidence. When my sister asked again, I reconsidered.

      The Penguins posted race finish times in the signatures to their posts. I had not yet timed myself, so didn’t know my pace. I was afraid to know. But I kept reading about them collecting race bibs and crossing the finish line even if it was last. The trolls popped in from time to time, but as quickly disappeared. One race might not hurt.

      Meanwhile, I asked my friend Krista more about races. She teased me for saying I’d never do one. The idea of supporting a cause I found important changed my perspective. She also found races fun. Raising money for a cause gave her a sense of purpose. She said I wouldn’t finish last and, even if I did, I would survive. I don’t know why I was so afraid of coming in last, but I was.

      Then one day I noticed a 26.2 sticker on the back of a friend’s car. Now that I was running, even at my snail’s pace, these white, oval stickers appeared on my radar. To me, the 26.2 sticker was the equivalent of a Ph.D. diploma for running. I already had three college degrees (bachelor’s, master’s, and Juris Doctor) and several academic and license certificates. I wanted to add this achievement to my collection. My friend’s was the first 26.2 sticker I’d noticed on the car of someone I knew.

      I caught my young friend and asked about his running. Tall and lean, he looked the way I thought a marathoner should. Standing outside the building where we both attended a recovery group, I confided, “I’d like to earn my own 26.2 sticker someday.” I looked at the ground, waiting for the, “You’ve got to be kidding” look. Instead, he smiled. “Keep running, and in time you’ll do it.” My throat closed. I was easily twice his age, much heavier, and hadn’t even run a 5k. I was probably manic. No matter. This kind man believed in me.

      I didn’t tell my sister, but planned for the 5k.

Chapter 4

A Perfect Storm

      Weight loss and the looming prospect of the “Big Five-Oh!” would have been enough reason for me to take up running again. There was also that wacky recurring dream. But these were surface factors. In fact, the seeds of Kim and Fiona’s posts landed on ground made fertile by difficulties starting five years before. A perfect storm of life events had created the critical mass necessary to get me off the sofa.

      Still, I wanted to lose weight.

      In high school and my twenties, I might gain five pounds during the winter, but easily lost that in the spring. By my early thirties, I looked anorexic. For the six months before I met Ed, I coped with the stress of practicing law with stringent diets. Chunks of my hair fell out, and I was frequently lightheaded, while my period stopped completely. The first time Ed opened the refrigerator in my house, it contained only an expired bottle of ketchup, a bag of apples, and a sleeve of bagels. By that time, I was only eating one bagel and one apple, cut into thirds, each day.

      After СКАЧАТЬ