Yesterday I crashed and burned at the Berlin Marathon.
In doing so, I came face to face with my greatest fear: It’s all pointless.
After the race, I immediately sat down and put my experience into words. You can find the unedited draft below.
The marathon as a metaphor for life is a tired and beaten up cliché. Because it is true.
Like life itself, you never know where a marathon will end up taking you.
Confronting my most devastating loss?
Reliving the pain and anguish of an unbearable grief?
None of these were on my radar of things to expect as I lined up at the start on the streets of Berlin yesterday.
But that’s the thing about marathons, you just can’t know.
The existential dread still lingers.
Once more, I have to forge a new path.
Manoeuvre my way around the grief.
Continue, despite my urge to lay down and simply give up.
To anyone out there who might be reading this while coping with a loss:
It gets better. You learn to live with it.
But it never goes away. And, just as you’re getting comfortable and you think you’ve found a way, it will hit you like a punch in the face.
All we can do is take one day at a time. And if that’s too overwhelming, focus on the next hour.
You learn to live with. Over and over again, you learn to live with it.
In between those lessons, life will be life. With all the good and bad that entails.
Just like a marathon.
I originally shared this on Twitter. Illustration generated with DALL·E 2.
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Let me know by sending me an email at lc@run161.com.