My lungs hurt now when I run. Okay, there’s the cigarettes, but it’s not just that. It’s something in my head, too. Because my lungs always hurt when I ran. Even before cigarettes. High school running was never easy for me, no matter how much I ran. No matter how far or how fast I tried to go. But I did it. Two miles, three miles, five miles. Wind sprints. Two hundred meter repeats. Four hundred meter repeats. I ran, oh how I ran.
I was never the fastest. Far from it. But I did it. And that was enough. It was always enough to just do it.
It can mean a lot sometimes, being the best. Wanting to be the best. Or just wanting to do something well, to be able to say that you’re good at it. That can be a driving motivation.
But at the very root, it starts with wanting. And I just haven’t wanted to run in quite the same way that I wanted to when I was 16. I haven’t wanted to push at the burning edges of my lung capacity. I haven’t wanted to stretch the limits of how far I could go without stopping. I just haven’t wanted it enough.
There are so many things I haven’t done, so many things I haven’t done simply because I haven’t wanted to do them quite enough.
More wanting leads to more doing. Simple.
I miss the sound of gravel under my shoes. So run.
narinda heng 