We Just Need Quick Feet

Everyone is running.

They’re running from their past, from feelings of hopelessness, and from themselves.

They’re running towards what they dream to be a better future.

I’ve always had some trouble getting started.

Getting out of bed has always been hard for me. It’s a warm, safe place where I can stay in the amazing worlds I’ve created in my mind and not have to face the challenges of the day. Facing myself is the greatest challenge. I’m hard on myself to the point of not always wanting to leave my room, but I don’t just want to stay in bed because I don’t think I can complete things, but because I’m in love with the IDEA of doing things.

Being in love with the idea of doing things means that I’m pretty good at planning. I like to think that I can even plan spontaneity. Every moment and action has a web of consequences spiralling out from it, and I love to anticipate where the vibrations in the web will go.

But I’m no Spiderman.

I can’t react to all the things that could possibly happen, and I’m really not smart enough to plan for everything. No one is.

What I can do is be light on my feet.

I can be ready to jump and juke and hurdle whatever happens to be in my way.

Quick feet are important.

When I used to hurdle that was the most important thing that my coaches drilled into my head. Quick feet. Quick feet! QUICK FEET! The only place that you generate speed is on the ground between the hurdles. That’s the only place that you can properly react to what’s in front of you.

Once you get in the air, there isn’t much you can do. You move fast on the ground and try your best to set yourself up to clear the obstacle in front of you. Then you kick your legs up and try your best to land on the other side.

It’s okay to hit the hurdle. It’s okay to brush it with your butt or kick it down completely. The only penalty is the time you lose when you hit it, or how it could make you fall.

Some people plough through every hurdle. They’re strong, they’re big, and they didn’t care how many hurdles they knocked down or broke, because they would always be able to power on.

I was never like that.

I needed to rely on technique, finesse, and speed to carry me over the obstacles in my way. Every brush with a hurdle and collision would hurt and slow me down. I’d look back on every race with regret at the hurdles I knocked over and how they affected my time. The bruises and cuts I got would take a long time to heal. Sometimes I considered never racing again. Ending it all.

The last few years have been filled with hurdles for me to overcome.

The hurdles have been unevenly spaced, and some have been much, much higher than others. People I love have died, work I’ve cared about has fallen by the wayside, and my own mind has been messing with my perception of the entire race.

But if there’s one thing I’ve been able to control through everything that’s happened, it’s been the takeoff before each hurdle.

Sometimes before a hurdle race the cheers and support of the people who love me can slip away, drowned out by the voice in my head that agonizes over every upcoming hurdle and the hurdles that came before. It can be a crushing feeling, tunnelling my vision so that even the best laid plans, or even the idea of them, can slip away until it’s almost impossible to get started.

But now that I’ve managed to get back in the blocks, and the gun has gone off, there’s only one thing that I need to remember.

There’s only one thing we truly all need to remember

Quick feet.

Thank you so much to my family, especially my mom, for being so understanding, loving, and helpful in getting me through depression, hypomania and suicide attempts.

Thank you to Creative Communications instructors who have put up with me and supported me through the education I thought I wasn’t going to get through.

And thank you to the rest of my family: my friends, for being there when I couldn’t sleep or couldn’t think or thought I couldn’t live. You have all helped me, from simple smiles in halls to deep conversations in the night, and hugs all around.

CreComm has been a ride. I’m not quite finished, but I know that I will thanks to all of you.