runningfromhellwithel

My essence is captured by the mythical Phoenix, who rose from the ashes and was reborn. I have walked a difficult path to get here, but with three children on my back, the future has never looked brighter.
Honestly, this isn’t something I planned out or anything. I don’t plan. I don’t lay my clothes out for tomorrow or make meal menus a week in advance and calendars confuse me. But I was thinking as I was running the other day about heaven and hell and trouble. I find trouble; I make trouble; I get in trouble; I get troubled; I make everyone else troubled. I’m trouble.
I sniff out trouble with the inevitability of a kid tossing a tantrum after too much birthday. Even as an adult attending church, I cannot contain snickering and inappropriate giggles.
What else do you need to know about me? Well, I run. I’ve been running since I turned 14. A lot of abused girls put on weight as a protective instinct and it worked pretty well for a time, but carrying around extra weight is a burden that I didn’t like shouldering. So I went on one of those diets and started to run and I’ve been running since. Whenever I stop running, I land in a lot of trouble.
I ran through a childhood that could well be described as hell. I ran through major depressive episodes and often teetered one step from the edge of a breakdown.  Through running, I held onto my sanity, my life and whatever belief in God I’ve managed to cobble together. Each step I take, no matter how physically painful, draws me a shade closer into my better angels.
And the steps have become painful over the years, which is how I earned the nickname Phoenix. Some mornings I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus and the truth is, I was. I survived a collision with a metro bus, and it’s fair to say that the accident fucked me up. And yet I keep rising from the pyre of a burning fire and as I run I realize that whatever hell is or isn’t, as long as I keep rising, my spirit will never die.

© December 2, 2011 E. L. Farris.