God IS Love

Running has been powerful therapy for me. I actually have no clue how it became an effective therapy for me, but I guess the point is that I found it. I was the child who hated to run. My mom made me play sports like soccer, basketball, and running track. I hated them all because they involved an exorbitant amount of running, soccer being the worst of all the sports my mom made me play. I just physically hated the feeling of running. My legs got tired, I could never find a rhythm to breathe, and I was slow. I would start to feel that cold sensation in my chest when I couldn't breathe, and there is nothing I hated more than that sensation. I seemed to have no endurance. How my brother was blessed with the tempo and endurance of a marathon runner, I'll never know. When I got to high school, I was deemed fit to choose my sports. I chose volleyball and dance team. In volleyball, the only running we did was during daily doubles and everyone knew the running only lasted 2 weeks. On dance team, I believe we only ran 1 time and it was because our coach couldn't get us to simmer the fuck down.

I knew what was up. I knew where the running was and where it wasn't. So how I became a runner as an adult is nothing short of a miracle.

When I first began therapy in the fall of 2013, I was given techniques to release stress and self-soothe. I was really good at pushing myself past my limits at that point, and not so good at taking it easy. I would rush into my therapist office, spit out an entire laundry list of things I wanted to accomplish that day, and then proceed to sit there and worry I wouldn't get it all done. I was wound as tight as Giselle Bundchen's ass. One of the first concepts the therapist and I needed to conquer was the concept that I needed time each day to relax. To have me time. My therapist suggested running. I looked at her like she'd grown a third tit. 'Never' I thought in that stubborn head of mine.

Never came sooner than I thought. A and I signed up for a breast cancer 5k, and we decided to do some training so we could run it. On our first practice run, I couldn't even run half a mile. It was summer, 70+ degrees, and I thought I was going. to. die. I think more water came out of my body on that first run than I'd ever put in my body! I ended up walking most of those first 3 miles, but everyone has to start somewhere. I ended up doing a combination of running and walking for that first 5k, but I was kind of hooked. I didn't feel the same way I felt when I was younger. I've thought about this so many times, and the only thing I can come up with is that I hated running because I felt like people were making me do it. And I don't do anything well when someone is making me do it.

It took me a couple of months before I could run a straight mile. It took me even longer before I could run a straight 3 miles. But along the way, I found something else. Something indescribable about myself. I could take the pain. I could handle the dead legs and the feeling that my heart was going to explode inside my chest. With each foot pounding the payment, I told myself that I was strong. That if I could handle this physical pain, I could handle anything. Any kind of mental pain, I could withstand. Every run I finished gave me such a high. A and I signed up for oodles of races.

We did one run during a very cold winter called the "Jingle Bell Jog". It was a night race, something A and I'd never done, and something we've never done again. The night was clear, but so very cold, around 30º I think. I stood in one spot, and jumped up and down until the race began. Once it began though, I calmed. Quite a bit. I found my pace, and tuned into my music. The race took us through downtown of our extremely small town, along the river, and under the bridge that separates Ohio from Kentucky.   I was running under the bridge, listening to Rihanna's "We Found Love", and staring up at the clear, frigid night sky. The stars seemed so bright, like I could reach out and touch them. Just then, for whatever reason, I tuned into a lyric in the song as Rihanna sang, "We found love in a hopeless place".

That resonated with me. A and I live in a despondently depressed area. The town at one time prospered, however large employers have since moved out of the area. The population is shrinking, and the population that has stuck around is largely on drugs. Pills are huge around here, although heroin and meth are becoming much cheaper and easier to come by since the local police began to crack down on pills. There are no unique restaurants, only chains. No unique stores, only Walmart and Kroger are left. The town is crumbling and dilapidated. Yet, as I ran along the river, I could not help but notice the beauty around me. The battered flood wall, covered with murals depicting the town's storied past. The way the large blue-green bridge gleamed in the moonlight. The water lapping gently at the rocky shore. Hoards of pounding feet behind, and in front of me. And I only felt love. I felt so much love I felt my heart would beat out of chest.

And that's when I saw it.

Spray-painted on the underside of the big bridge were these exact words- "God IS Love".

I don't know why these words threw me, but they did. Yes, I am an atheist. As much of an atheist as one can be at least, as I am not arrogant enough to proclaim I 100% know there is no god. But what if? What if everything that theists's claim they know about "God" is false? Part of the reason I can't jump on the religion train is because I can't get on board with so much pain and so much suffering. I just can't. There is no reason in the world a gentle and loving creator would allow the things that happen on Earth to happen (please read this article if you need an example). The only explanation can be chaos, and a universe that doesn't care what happens to us. I have no idea why the human brain must insist that we are the pinnacle of evolution, that we are huge, that we are everything. It's mind-boggling. But what if "God" is that part of us that is "Love"?

I was really feeling it in that moment. I saw beauty all around me, in front of me, and behind. And I loved them all. I saw a pack of people not caring about anything but their feet hitting the payment, and the feeling of drawing one more clear burst of air into their lungs. I saw people that were running for a cause, because the Jingle Bell Jog was supporting the local food pantry. I saw a crowd that was doing the best that they possibly could in that very moment.

And I felt love.

I felt compassion.

'Could this be God?' I dreamily pondered. Could it be that "God" was not some figure-head in the sky, but an overwhelmingly warm feeling manifested out of our own bodies? If so, I never wanted to leave the moment.

But, as all moments do, it passed. I think I stumbled a few minutes later, and began to think about my ankle being a bit sore. A few minutes after that, I realized I was nearing the end and picked up the pace. And just a few minutes after that, I was sweaty and out of breath at the finish line, no doubt with a brain completely full of different thoughts.

I never forget that moment though. Seeing those words on the bridge is burned in my brain, a split-second I will never forget. I can close my eyes, and still see those words. Hauntingly beautiful in cheap, red, Walmart spray paint.

A lot of the time, it's hard to feel that way again. Every now and then, a run will make me that introspective. Yoga and mediation do the trick, too. I spend a lot of time mediating on love and its so-closely-related emotion, hate. Compassion. Empathy. Forgiveness. I mediate on these feelings, and try to let them encompass me. Let them open my heart, fill my body, and push out the doubt. The shame and heaviness that I'm convinced all humans feel. And you know what?

It makes me feel better.

I feel like this post flows freely into a post on forgiveness, so I'm going to stop there for today. The only thing I'm hoping people get out of this post today is to show you these technique that therapists try to get everyone to do- like exercise- they do work. They can work way more effectively than medicine sometimes, in my opinion. I'm also hoping you yourself might take some time to ponder on what I think is the most powerful emotion in the universe- love.

Till next time!