One foot in front of the other

As I sat in the living room chair yesterday, unlacing my running shoes, wiping the sweaty hair from my face, thumbing through Twitter on my phone, I couldn’t help but shake my head and whisper, ‘I know, girl.’

Running Through the Fear by Katie Arnold appeared in my feed, published by Outside online.

I read with tears in my eyes and sympathy in my soul as, Katie, a freelance journalist, author, ultrarunner, and mom, (Wow!), told her story about how through running alone on mountain trails she has faced serious danger and always moved forward, putting one foot in front of the other.

(Read her amazing story here: www.outsideonline.com/2391577/running-through-fear)

Katie is as brave and thoughtful as her conclusion suggests: ‘Yes, I still love this world and its wildness, for its wildness. And for mine.’

Lately, I have found a similar sense (call it a cocktail of calm/daring/appreciation) in running along dusty trails near my home. Certainly, I don’t go as far or as fast as Katie. For her being an ultrarunner, I am the opposite. A minimalist runner, if one can self-identify as such.

Still, through my few-mile jaunts around the nearby mesa or loops around the tree-lined lake, I find the quiet and gratitude my mind needs.

Like Katie, I have the scars of a life well lived.

Whether the surgical scars from the compound ankle fracture or the broken left leg or the saucer-like incisions where my breasts once lived, the scars are there and they tell a tale.

Lately, though, it’s been the mental scars taking a toll.

This spring marks my third since the diagnosis of Cancer 2.0. It is a milestone I am thankful to mark but also dread like nothing before.

Next month, I will undergo a PET scan to determine if the cancer once in my body has returned or, fuck, has spread.

For weeks, I haven’t been able to really focus on the world around me. Every itch in my chest or dizzy spell I encounter remind me of what could be. Truth: It’s pretty difficult to go grocery shopping and remember the guacamole when you think you have brain cancer.

That is, until I step into my running shoes and head out to the trail.

While I run, OK jog, I see the blue of the sky changing from winter gray to spring hues. I notice the yellow buds poking through muddy muck. I see the prairie dogs already running wild and screaming at me as I pass.

It is the diversion I need. A diversion that is holding me together.

This morning, I did what I haven’t yet been able to do. I called the clinic and scheduled the scan.

It will happen a few days after my husband and I return from a quick getaway.

God bless this man, my husband. He sees me every day. He’s witnessed the emotional unraveling. Still, he plunked down a credit card and will whisk me off for a few days of beaches and palm trees.

With the graying beard and worry lines of a far-too-decent man, I am blessed to have him.

Strangely, I am also blessed to have this body that, although I fear might betray me again, is strong enough to trot along the trails.

As Katie pointed out in her story, ‘There is never any end to the fears. The trick is to move toward them, not away.

‘Running is as good a way as any to try. I’m alone with the voices in my head for hours at a time. I can study my anxiety for patterns; I see its ragged, wily persistence. I greet it with a half-hearted wave as I would someone I’ve known a very long time but am not entirely happy to see. Oh, you again. On some days, my worry is more acute and on others less, but it’s always part of the package: inescapable, chronic, not so very different from love itself. The crux is to live as big as you can, to love it all even when you stand to lose it all.’

Thanks, Katie … ‘I know, girl.’