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Tribute to epiphanies

Things that made me happy today:

  1. Nice day out in town with my friend
  2. Didn't have any arguments with said friend even though we discussed several controversial topics (good, considering we argue about the smallest things)
  3. Bought a lovely bag formyself - which was on sale!
  4. Ran 1km non-stop. Then ran another 1km non-stop.

A kilometre probably isn't much for a lot of people but it is for me, the person that struggled to finish the 1500m in school. I'm hardly the adrenaline junkie, but all this recent exercise is my renewed bid to lose weight, get fit and to keep myself occupied while unemployed. It's not the easiest thing to keep some sort of structure to your day when every time you open your eyes in the morning you know you can roll over and go back to sleep becuase you don't have to go to work. You can stay in your jammies and watch re-runs of Scrubs and 8 Simple Rules all day. There is no reason to shower and to comb your hair.

For the past two days I felt like I was coming down with respiratory infection. My throat was sore, I could not stop coughing and I was sleeping long hours. Also, for the past week my eczema had flared up, making me dig all of my fingernails into my face resulting in my skin to weep and cake over. My new nickname was 'Crusty'. This afternoon, I had heartburn because I missed lunch. To top it all off, all that emollient I had slathered on my face had caused a breakout of massive volcano-like pimples across my forehead and chin. I could not have felt more hideous.

Still I had mustered a day out in town. No cries of, "Oh my GOD! What is that?!"

I could feel (or imagined) the weight piling on due to my inactive life. Which is why, despite feeling unwell and like a lard-arse, I put my running shoes on and thought, right, today you shall run further than you have in the past 2 weeks. You shall push yourself.

Today was a perfect day for a run. The sun was out. Winds strong enough to form waves on the river. The faint smell of the sea on the air. There wasn't a human being in sight but I hardly felt alone. How could I on a day like this when you've got life all around you? Here was no place to feel morose or be self-pitying.

As I was pounding the pavement, gasping for air yet feeling that I could still push it to the next marker, then the next and the next, I thought to myself - I'm not sick. Not in the way I think I am, anyway. I'm not a mushy bag of flesh that needs to go around in two potato sacks. I'm not a useless, unemployed bum. I'm not dying of a sore throat. The heartburn is simple reflux. I am not only a pair of ovaries and a uterus whose biological clock is running out. My 'shelf-life' isn't expiring. I am still young with a healthy body and a healthy (okay, maybe a little dirty) mind. I am not degenerating, only mending. All hurts can be mended.

I stopped running and sat down on the stone steps of the esplanade. My face was turned to the sun and the wind. A kid was throwing pebbles from the road above. A rusty supermarket rolley sat overturned on the river bank. Suddenly I laughed. What strange epiphanies one has while running. I had more while I was sitting there by the river. But like Tenacious D's Tribute to the greatest song in the world, I couldn't remember all of it now that I'm sitting in my flat all freshly showered and moisturised.

This is just a tribute.

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