Essay

A Stolen Run

By: Ann McCreedy, 10/01/2020

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Rolling out of bed and moving quickly toward the desk, she turns off the five-dollar alarm clock. She pauses to listen. After a moment she exhales affirmed that the alarm has awoken only her. She picks up the clothes she optimistically laid out the night before. Had it been a rough night, they would have stayed there for another day, but she slept uninterrupted.

She creeps down the stairs. She sees the flicker of the tv. She sighs. Her husband must be asleep on the couch. She is filled with equal parts annoyance, anger, and guilt. It is an unfortunate reflex reaction to her husband now. As much as she tries to separate the illness from the man, her first response upon seeing him is a flood of feelings of loss and responsibility.

Trying not to dwell, she moves to the door. He wakes up just as she opens it. “Don’t run. Stay with me.” His sad and worried eyes plead with her. “Just a short one. I’ll be back soon.” She slips out before he responds. She hooks her headphones over her ears and pulls her phone out. She opens the music app and taps the playlist reserved for runs. The music contains words she won’t play in front of her kids. It pumps her up and helps her shift to warrior-mode.

Moving down the driveway, she sees in the periphery her front curtains being pulled back. She tries not to feel annoyed. The same Army service that has caused a plaque to transform his brain into something resembling swiss cheese also gave him a constant hypervigilance. Does she turn around and wave reassuringly? She can’t muster it this morning. She continues down the drive and into the street without looking back.

Her run begins with a gentle decline. She eases into the run with the gift of gravity lengthening her strides. She turns and then pushes into her heels and feels the strength of her legs. She shifts her hips forward and straightens her back. This is her favorite part of the run – an easy uphill that makes her grateful for her body.

A few years ago, she would tell people, the only reasons to run were if someone was chasing her. Then, after her husband was diagnosed, she realized she needed to be healthy, physically and mentally, in order to be what her family needed her to be. Running slowly transformed her body and continues to shed the weight of the world she carries day-to-day.

She runs through the skunky cloud of recreational marijuana. She smiles as she always does outside this house. What would it be like to go through her day half-checked-out? She knows she won’t but as she runs on and the scent begins to fade, she imagines a version of herself that wouldn’t worry about the consequences and would light up to start her day.

Two more turns and she is back on her street. A steep decline right before her drive gives her the feeling a roller coaster coming back into the station. Someday, she’ll learn to run downhill but for now, it is not a graceful sight. Nearing her house, she takes off her headphones. Immediately, she hears her younger child screaming. She contemplates running another loop to buy a little more time.

After a moment, she squares her shoulders, hooks one headphone back on her ear. Looking down at her phone, she scrolls back to the first song in her run and starts it again. Warrior-mode. She climbs the stairs and opens the door.

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