When I’m running hard I do this thing with my throat to keep from throwing up. I make a grunty sound but it’s not so much the physical act of clearing my throat that keeps the puke at bay but it’s more the way I self-regulate, as if I’m mentally readjusting my grip on a rope. I am aware that there is a very real possibility that I will no longer be able to hold in the puke. It’s burbling right there below the surface, sloshing up my esophagus with each hard step until I shush it back down with a stern grunt.
The last one hundred metres are apocalyptic. I see the finish line, but the sloshing creeps up closer and closer causing my throat-clearing to become much noisier, more obnoxious and desperate, like how exhausted mothers shriek at their children in WalMart: “NOT NOW! WAIT UNTIL WE GET HOME!!”
And then, once I cross that finish line, my arms flailing, my body skidding to a stop, the puke that I have worked so hard to hold down suddenly catches up to me and I hop over the rope to throw up in the bushes.
It’s like life. We’ve all got these issues that are burbling right below the surface and we distract ourselves with every possible thing that comes along so as to not have to deal. We blindly surge forward with the misconception that if we run hard enough away from our problems that they’ll eventually disappear behind us, but no. They don’t. They catch up like a freight train and slam into the back of us when we finally exhaust all the parts of ourselves that did everything it took to keep it all at bay.
And that’s okay.
Because sometimes puking on the side of the road and losing our momentum causes us more pain than if we were to just keep going. Sometimes we just have to hold on, readjust our grip on the rope and hold on a bit longer. Once we cross the finish line and puke our brains out, we may be tired, but we feel a bit lighter and a hell of a lot better.
But diarrhea is a different story. There’s nothing special about pooping your pants. I’m sorry.
Reposted with Permission from Suzy Has the Runs