Thoughts While Running #026

one foot in front of the other

I went for a run Wednesday morning.  I really didn’t want to; in truth I didn't even want to get out of bed.  I had that same familiar feeling of dread I used to get back when I'd drink so much I couldn't remember what I did the night before.  Snippets of the evening coming back to me as I would cringe in memory (one of the many reasons I’m grateful I went through my drunk and unhappy phase before the invention of social media).

Still I got up, partially because I had an almost 3 year old yelling ‘mama i wanna wake up’ at 4:30am, partially because once I remembered what had happened sleep was beyond my grasp anyway, and partially because I had committed (and heavily promoted) that we were hosting a ‘morning after’ run at the store.  I had joked that we could all celebrate or commiserate but either way we’d probably want to be around people.  We had one person show up…it seems as though I wasn't the only one who wanted to stay in bed all day.

In the end, I’m glad I put the run on the calendar, because for about 40 minutes that morning I briefly forgot about all the fear, grief + feelings of impending doom I woke up to. I text with a few friends throughout the day and the one thing I kept coming back to is that now, more than ever, we need to lean into our people.  Those relationships we all have that are solid gold - the friends who uplift, who care, who can commiserate.  Who knows what the next four years entail, and right now we need to band together with the people we want in our corner. There’s a lot of division in the US right now, and maybe this will only create a wider divide, however at the moment I don’t care.  There is no space for a proverbial olive branch when the majority of Americans have just told me that I, as a female, do not matter. 

As a white, comfortably middle class woman who’s locked into a pre-pandemic/pre-inflation mortgage rate, I'll (hopefully) survive the next 4 years relatively in one piece.  We might have a government in power who believes my rights should be limited, who potentially might wish to take away my ability to own my own business, credit card etc but hopefully it’s lower on their list of priorities.  I’m firmly ensconced in the naive bubble of acceptance living in a heavily blue state + city can afford.  I don’t run the risk of striking up a random conversation with someone at soccer practice, tip-toeing around current events because I'm not sure which side of the aisle she sits.  My beliefs do not make me the minority where I live.

My immediate family all still live in Michigan.  When I moved back to the US nearly 10 years ago, my intention was to be closer to them and I might’ve even moved to Detroit if it wasn’t for winter.  Despite this, I traveled back for family events even less frequently than I had when I lived north of the border.  I met my now husband fairly early on after moving to SF and while we were busier, the truth is after 2016 I no longer felt as ‘at home’ in my ‘home’ state.  I half joked the only safe places to visit were on the coasts (LA, SF, NYC, etc) but I often wonder if it’s true.  The last time I visited MIchigan was in 2021; I was 16 weeks pregnant and between the ‘Trump 2024’ signs and the lack of masks despite very much still being in the midst of a pandemic, I felt for the first time physically unsafe in the state I grew up in.

I wanted to work Wednesday even less than I wanted to go for that run.  I didn’t really expect anyone to wander into the store because the last thing I myself wanted to do was shop and interact with anyone other than my duvet.  We open at 11, and by 10:30 the streets were still slow so I picked up fresh flowers for the store and allowed myself the luxury of arranging them.  These are the small joys that will help get us through dark times.

Now as I occasionally check the headlines, I skip over any sort of campaign analysis. I don't want to dissect who won and why.  The truth is it was always a long shot because America is a country in which the patriarchy runs deep; we are a nation birthed by its ‘founding fathers’, built on the backs of slaves.  A white woman was a long shot, a woman of color even longer; no matter how qualified she might be.  This is not the first time I've seen an overqualified female candidate lose out to her underqualified male opponent and unfortunately it probably won’t be the last time either.

Coming from a long career in the fashion industry, one that is heavily female, I used to joke with a friend who I worked alongside that men could do no wrong in our industry, because they had ‘penis protection’.  We joked because we’d experienced one too many (mostly white) men who had been hired into positions higher than our own do very little to push the needle forward.  Big talkers, emboldened by the fact that they’ve never experienced anything other than the privilege their penis has afforded them, never had to fight to be heard as the floor was already clear.

I've gained a few new followers in the past couple of weeks, some through the store + others via Running Sucks, where Raz so kindly highlighted my store.  I had planned to write something far more uplifting, touching on the highs of the nearly two weeks since the store has been opened: the community I've gotten to know, the friends who’ve rallied in my corner; the fact that while running may feel like a solo sport it never really is.  Even after writing this I hesitate to publish, because do we really need yet another person writing about their thoughts from the past week?  Probably not.  We’re tired, exhausted by the stress + constant barrage of polling insights, texts asking for $5 and cold calls imploring us to vote yes or no.  But if this helps remind someone that no matter how they’re feeling there’s a safe space for them here, and in running, that’s all that really matters.

*k