I (will always) Remember Running

I have a new therapist who patiently castigates me for not letting myself feel my emotions. To a certain degree I know that she is right, but on the flipside, what is the purpose of wallowing in self-pity to the extent that I might be inclined? I always tell her that feeling all my feelings is unproductive. She counters that with, feeling your feelings is what helps you to process them. I argue back, how can you process something that is still happening? At some point, God willing, maybe this disease will be cured and I will once again be able to scratch my own nose/wipe my own tears and I will be afforded the opportunity to process my decades-long continuous battle with this disease, but in the short term I think I need to keep it moving forward.

But there is one exception to this rule: when I watch my high school students run track.

 I retired from teaching in 2012 and moved from Baltimore, Maryland back to my parent’s house in Ithaca New York. I was 34 years old and I had just completed nine months of chemotherapy as a last-ditch effort to get my inexplicably “relapsing” form of an otherwise progressive case of multiple sclerosis under control. At that point, I had tried every other pharmacological option available to me, in addition to regular physical therapy, an amalgamation of diets and an haphazard attempt at spiritual warfare. My doctor and I weighed the pros and cons of going on chemotherapy monthly versus being on no type of disease modifying medication, and I opted for the former. I really wanted to feel like I had tried every option available and given my body a fair shot to respond positively to something.

 

Chemo – as it is wont to do with everyone – wreaked havoc on my body. There are people, some of whom I’ve known personally, who bravely endure daily doses of chemo that immediately lead to hair loss, nausea, weakness etc., and many of those people continue working throughout. I was not one of those people. I was not even receiving therapeutic, cancer-combating doses of cytoxin, but after my first dose I was down for the count for almost an entire month. As one of the few MS patients who has never suffered from fatigue, post chemo I could not stay in an upright position in my chair for longer than a few hours at a time without needing a nap. Never mind the impact it had on both my GI tract and my bladder, it was the complete exhaustion that made full-time work start to seem impossible.  But despite the obvious, I doggedly refused to quit my job teaching world history at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and instead worked with my supportive and equally dogged union rep to figure out a way to get me a “co-teacher” for the year. I would be the lead teacher except for the one week per month that I would spend recovering from my monthly dose of chemo.

 

So I (mostly) made it through one last academic school year at Poly, and despite missing at least one full week out of every month of the school year, I even received the excellence in writing instruction award at my last ever faculty meeting (ironically my reward was a pen that I was never able to physically hold). By April of that year, however, it was clear, even to my stubborn self, that chemo had not really helped my cause. I spent the duration of my spring break getting a second opinion from a highly recommended neurologist in New York City before ultimately imploring my own doctor to admit me to Meyer Nine at Johns Hopkins for a last-ditch attempt to feel at least a little bit better. It was actually there, in my single occupancy hospital room, where I first realized I was probably done. At that point, I had two brilliant live-in Kenyan caregivers who collectively cost more than my teaching salary afforded, I had burned through all 50+ all of my saved up sick days and was no longer receiving paychecks for the days I spent in the hospital or recovering post chemo, I could no longer sign hall passes using my right hand, I needed help from literally everyone around me to make copies, enter grades, comment on papers, etc., and I was living in an apartment that – though impressively retrofitted to accommodate my evolving needs thanks to an excessive amount of grab bars – was certainly not intended to be lived in by a quadriplegic in a 360 lb. motorized wheelchair. I reached out to my aforementioned union rep and told him it was time. He communicated with my administrators, told my co-teacher that she was in charge and helped me navigate at least the beginning of the early-retirement process. Most of which, to be completely honest, I think I have since blocked out of my memory.

 

The retirement process, my interactions with my Poly students for the duration of the year (I did end up finishing out the school year despite having officially “retired” and no longer receiving paychecks), the two disastrous caregiving experiences that preceded the amazing Kenyans and maybe even an in-depth explanation of my road to chemotherapy all deserve individual stories at some point. As does the soul crushing depression that accompanied the end of my life in Baltimore. But for the purposes of the rest of this particular blog, my retirement from Poly and my move to Ithaca is what placed me in Cornell University’s Barton Hall in the winter of 2024. My mom’s boyfriend – who graciously agreed to spend one of his weekend afternoons at a high school track race – was at my side while I watched students from my own alma mater (where I currently work) run their hearts out on the indoor track where I ran my first ever indoor track meet for Colgate in the winter of 1996.

 

That was a long preface.

I have not run competitively since 1997. That is longer than most of my current caregivers have been alive. But the feeling. The feeling when I step (metaphorically) into Barton Hall takes my literal breath away. Outdoor track meets hurt a little, but not like indoor meets. Within the confines of the Fieldhouse, my self experiences a sensory overload that borders on assault. I inhale the ever-familiar scent of the rubber track, the sweetness of sweat, the smoke from the gun firing twice to indicate a false start, the menthol from icy hot being rubbed into athlete’s muscles – smells that combine into a perfume that I absorb eagerly even as my chest tightens. As I inhale memories, my ears are inundated by cheers reverberating from all angles; shouts of encouragement erupt from spectators in the above stands, teammates and coaches in the infield and parents on the periphery of the track. Coaches with stopwatches and clipboards yell splits as the official, standing immediately to the inside of lane one, flips the indicator of remaining laps – as if any runner could ever doubt the number of laps that remain. There are intangibles as well; feelings that penetrate as if by osmosis –nerves and excitement and exhaustion. Disappointment and frustration and victory and relief. All feelings I know intimately – from both track and life. I absorb everything and watch with rapt attention for the one race that will initiate my unraveling. Sometimes there is more than one. It's always in the last lap and it's the look of triumph over agony; determination over defeat. It's written all over a runner's face and it's a resounding reminder – for me – of what once was, and what (maybe) could have been. There is nothing like it. It is the only thing that reliably – since 1997 – always moves me to tears.

 

I was not a track star. In fact, while I ran from middle school through my senior year when I eventually captained my high school cross country team, I only ran track for three total years – my junior and senior year in high school and my freshman year in college. But at Colgate I developed two things: a hunger that felt insatiable and the confidence in myself that I needed to finally succeed (as a runner and as a person, which at that point in my life felt inextricably linked). Running – and my proximity to success – are what made my life matter.

15 years ago I wrote an article called "I (still) remember running" because, of all the things I can no longer do – and the list is even longer now – I can still remember exactly how it felt, spikes on, to approach the line filled with nerves and anxiety as the ref yelled "set." And I still remember how – once the gun went off – everything else around and within me was somehow still. I had one thing to do. One thing. Run the race. Fast.

Running is not what I miss the most. It was the first thing I lost but by no means the hardest (at least in retrospect). I wonder then, why is it that watching a track meet is the only surefire way to make me feel the gravity of my loss; the only time I can cry in my very personal, barely discernible, muted fashion.

Why do I want to share this? So that maybe other people might know what a miracle it is to be able to rely on your body. To take joy in its successes. To concretely connect your mind to your own movement in moments of both triumph and defeat, endorphins and pain. To know that those moments are in your control and that control is miraculous. And maybe, as I write – speaking to this computer with a persistent lump in my throat – I will process something that makes me believe, as I did when I stood on the starting line, that I can (still) do this. And I will.