I lay in bed early this morning thinking about how far I've come. Not only since January, when I could only run 10 minutes without stopping, but since the year 2000. That was the year I began my long, slow crash off the metaphorical bike of Life. It's taken me 9 years to get back on that bike. And, like my real life cycling, it's still sometimes a quad-burning, nausea-inducing, pulse-racing effort to keep on going. And as I thought about it all, for the first time I felt no regrets. I smiled, at how far I've come at how much I've achieved that no one else can see or measure, that only I know. And then I decided to try to run up the Wolfschlucht.
My daughter was still asleep, and I dressed quietly, grabbed my iPod and set off down the hill from our flat to Leimgrubenweg. Along Gündelidingerstrasse, I tried not to sing out loud, with my music playing and the sun shining. I took the left turn into the Wolfschlucht and began to climb. I thought it would be tough, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting and just at the right moment Muse came on my iPod and powered me up and up.
On I climbed to Studio Basel and down a bit and up again, and then, an utterly perfect moment. My endorphines were flowing and Chasing Cars was playing as I reached the point where you suddenly see the whole of Basel stretching out before you.
I stood for a minute or two, looking out over Lörrach and the Black Forest, listening to my favourite song, thinking about what a beautiful place I live in and who I want to be.
Then I turned and ran towards the hospital, still lost in the song, running hard. As Rammstein came on and pushed me even faster, I felt like I could run for ever, do anything I choose. As if to prove it, as I turned towards home, I saw someone I know, Nordic walking towards me. This is someone I used to REALLY want to impress, and today, when I actually felt quite impressive, I discovered that I no longer cared what she thinks of me, and I just smiled and waved and powered on past.
I ran past our flat and cooled down jogging through the forest with KT Tunstall singing "come over here, lady" and then I was home. Fabulous.
And as I got out of the delicious shower, the Anxiety voice dared to whisper in my ear that I shouldn't feel this good, because something bad could happen if I do. And so I told it to piss off and went to eat my porridge.
