Where to begin....

Over the years this blog has been as much about my mental health as it has about my running. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what to write about next, how to explain these strange times we live in. How to reflect where I am in my running journey, but also my mental health and just life in general. Face it we live in curious curious times. How many of us would have imagined we would become so much part of history. A global pandemic that has impacted the very fabric of our society but also us as individuals - we cannot and should not underestimate the times we live in. Then a global movement also began to rise out of the existing disruption. Black Lives Matter has become something none of us can ignore. It has challenged us almost as much as Covid-19 and it has the ability to divide us almost as much as lockdown, if we let it. 

I’ve kept a diary all throughout lockdown. Just daily notes of key things that have happened and some of my experiences. I plan on writing them up but that is not for this blog. Part of me also realised it was time to start writing my wider journey. Perhaps finally try and put pen to paper or fingers to keys to put down my story. Lockdown lethargy has meant I’ve done neither but I also now know how much discipline I need to give myself to achieve these goals. But again that is not for this blog. 

Back in March, when I last wrote we had little idea what lay ahead. We had all read about Italy and Spain. We all knew we were shifting in to a new reality. We talked of what would become the new normal. There is no new normal. There is just now. We told each other to be kind. To give ourselves space and time. We started to work from home. Or as I now like to think of it ‘live at work’. Small comforts became big comforts - our favourite restaurants still on deliveroo. A walk in the park (only one a day). Netflix releasing new programmes. The amazon delivery man keeping to his 24 hour promise. Learning that Gino was the name of my DPD driver. 

My blog at the start of lockdown dipped into our changes in human behaviour. How judgemental we all became. How watching others instead of ourselves became the new national past time. For some lockdown was a chance to finally release the need to be what others wanted them to be, but they couldn’t. Introverts excelled. Extroverts folded. Families who got on found that they missed each other and the distance was unbearable. Those who don’t need company blissfully watched days pass with no one. Loneliness became intolerable. The thought of seeing people again became unimaginable. We discovered we are individuals. No right way, or wrong way, to go through a collective experience of such magnitude our brains struggle (even now) to comprehend what we’ve lived through. 

Then the realities hit. The daily deaths rise. People you know die, people we knew died. Not necessarily Covid, but in these weird and strange times death becomes something even more other. A surreal, isolating experience. It’s hard to maintain any sense of self. Any sense of holding on to what you know. I tried to run. Honestly. I managed two runs during April - one of them nearly 10 miles. Then a smattering of 5ks in May. I reached June having run a total of 66 miles for the year. It was nearly the anniversary of my Race to the Tower where I did 53 in one go! 

During Lockdown I tried my hardest to live well. Our social media image showed deliveries, wine, takeaways. Those small comforts which hid a reality of long work hours. Stress. Fear. Anxiety. Isolation. I felt myself slipping in to old habits. My resilience failing. I started binge listening to blogs, books, Brene Brown, Glennon Doyle. Anything that would help me through. I found an online therapy site (Better Help) and signed up with a coronavirus discount. I found that solitude could bring rest and recuperation. No pressure to do things. No more shoulds. The coronacoaster ride had its ups and its downs. By the end of May i felt powerful. I used the term Lockdown Liberation. I found inspiring words and quotes. I found that doing things differently brings you different results. I found Enneagrams. I found a place for me. 

With the lifting of social restrictions I even found running with people back on the agenda. 5k and super slow. But it was company. Hard as I find seeing people ‘putting myself in the path of good’ is something I have to strive for. However uncomfortable it makes me, that connection you get from others is what keeps us alive. 

But then the world started to burn. Rightly so. Justly so. A new reality dawned for me. My white privilege. My inability to understand that the opposite of racist isn’t ‘not racist’ but anti-racist. Uncomfortable questions. Difficult answers. Friend against friend. Family against family. Fear and the belief this questioning made you wrong. Made you defensive. Made you embarrassed. But actually, doing difficult things, learning to ask difficult questions, opening yourself up to consider new points of view just makes you grow. As runners we know that reaching hard goals isn’t easy. You go through pain. You have to push yourself out of your comfort zone. But it’s worth it in the end. So why shouldn’t it be the same for life. It isn’t asking us as individuals to apologise and feel shame. It’s just asking us to be vulnerable. To open ourselves up to new possibilities and ask the hard questions and listen. We’ve not been listening. I’ve not been listening. And it hurt. But it didn’t put my life in danger. It didn’t impact my ability to find work. It didn’t tell me I was worth less than someone else. But wait, yes it did. When I was young and realising I was gay all of those things stood in my way. I had no legal protection. I had no understanding from society. I had individuals who stood with me, told me it was okay. Told me they would help fight for my rights. So why now would I turn in any other direction than into that head wind?

It’s fucking hard. Let it burn. Let’s not be afraid of things that are ‘other’ to us. Let us just listen. On all sides. But no side trumps the other. No side is trying to trump the other. I promise. Do not fall in to the trap of thinking this is about supremacy or power. It is not. It is about equality. It is about policy and making change. Tolerance. Acceptance are all great. But they are not equality. We cannot educate others until we educate ourselves. 

And now where am I? Where are we? I thought in June it was all falling apart again but I’ve learned it’s an almighty wave, I will always find myself sinking, going under, panic rising inside as I struggle to break the surface. But I will also always make it up above the wave and back to the beach. And because I can, because I want to, I will take myself back out in to sea and go through it all again. Some times I’ll swim back to shore with no issues and then other days I’ll sink again. Or perhaps it will be raining and I’ll pack my bags and just go home instead of venturing into the sea. All of that is okay. 

Last sunday I packed my bag and headed off for a run. I’d heard from Lucy about the Kentish Loch - Langley Loch. This I had to see for myself so i set off on an adventure. Run/walking - feeling the fact I hadn’t really run anywhere in a month. But I found it and I found the thrill of a trail run where you don’t really know where you are or where you should be going. I planned to loop briefly onto the Greensand way to visit the goats at Buttercups and head home. But I got to the Greensand way at about 5 or 6 miles and just knew I wanted to go further. So I did. I ended up on a 13 mile route. Perhaps I could have even gone further. No training. No foresight. Just me, taking my time. No pressure. No judging myself or walking or stopping. Enjoying the views. Enjoying being out. Enjoying the feeling of not knowing if I would continue or stop. Liberation. Lockdown Liberation. Who knew? And who knows where it will take me next but, in that, I’m no longer afraid.