A short memoir about how running saved my PhD's life
**I wrote this piece for a collection of creative works published by my grad school department. Since it was inspired by my very first post in this blog, I thought I would publish it here as well. Enjoy!
I looked at the clock and groaned… time to get back to work. But I couldn’t move. I’d already been
working on this homework assignment for 9 hours straight that day. 9 hours.
That’s 540 minutes. 540 soul-sucking minutes. Just 360 more minutes and I’d
lose the same sized chunk of soul that I’d lost yesterday. (And the day before
that and the day before that).
I sat up slowly and caught my reflection in the mirror
across my room. Yep, I still look like
me. It took me by surprise. Half the time I expected to see someone
completely different. I stared at the 2D reflection, wondering how I could have
been so delusional to think that I was smart enough to get a PhD. Fail. You will fail if you don’t figure out
this homework problem. But I flopped back down on my bed. Just a few more minutes. I just need a few
more minutes to lay here and let the mush that used to be my brain, solidify
again. I let my head hang off the side of the mattress, as if it might help
with the de-mushing.
I found myself staring at a picture on the wall of a girl with
a face that looked like mine, but she must have been from a past life. Is reincarnation a thing? She was
smiling. Clad in blue biking clothes and surrounded by a handful of people
wearing the exact same thing, right down to their smiles. It was almost unbearable
for me to think about the fact that only a few short months ago, I was that
girl. Pedaling from Baltimore to San Francisco, for 70 glorious days. Traversing the country on nothing but my own
steam…I’d never felt so powerful. Now, lying there feeling pathetic and
ineffective; that life stood in such stark contrast to the life I found myself
in, I had to have dreamt the whole thing. But this picture was proof.
I could practically hear my muscles atrophying as I lay
there staring at the muscular past-life girl. If I’d had a scale, it would have
told me that I’d lost nearly 10 pounds of muscle since that picture was taken. Well, at least getting up and walking to my
desk will slow the atrophying a little. I crossed the room, sat down in my
desk chair, grabbed a chewed-up pencil, and stared at the not-so-small mountain
of papers in front of me. But try as I might, my eyes wouldn’t stay on the
papers long enough for me to make any sense of it. They kept involuntarily
darting to the corner of my room. What
are you looking at, eyes?
It was a pair of shoes. Running shoes that had cushioned my
footfalls through countless miles on the streets and sidewalks of Baltimore.
Though they were worn and practically molded to the shape of my feet, they
looked unfamiliar and almost revirginized, sitting there connected to the wall
by a spider web. Warmth spread through my body at the thought of picking them
up and breaking that spider web. I shook my head and blinked a few times, forcing
myself to look back at the paper mountain.
Don’t be stupid. Do
you think any of your classmates are dreaming of breaking strands of spider
silk right now? They’re working furiously on this assignment. Unless you want
to fail out of grad school, you have to spend 20 hours working every day like
the rest of them. The remaining 4 hours are for sleeping only! Duh.
I grabbed the top paper off the pile and stared at it,
willing the jumbled pencil marks to make sense. It was no use. My fingers
drummed impatiently, my foot jiggled violently. Apparently I had completely
lost control of my extremities. Screw it.
I laced on those shoes and was out the door in a matter of
minutes. It was starting to get dark and the dusky breeze whipped my hair in
all directions. Each gust seemed to purify me, taking all thoughts of Bessel
functions and fugacity with it. It took a few minutes for my legs to find the
familiar stride, but when they did, it was like welcoming an old friend. Each
footstep breathed life into my muscles. Slowly, my self-doubt melted away. I
was no longer a struggling grad student. I just…existed. An extension of the
ground and of the air. All I had to think about was landing one foot in front
of the other, and watching the miles trickle away behind me.
----------------
Three and a half
years later
I barge through the door and beeline for my water bottle on
the table. Between gulps I manage to kick off my new running shoes and place
them next to the small, colorful mound of old running shoes in the corner. I
haven’t had the heart to throw them away. They’ve carried me through 24 races
and all the training runs leading up to them. That’s nearly 3000 miles. 3000
soul-quenching miles.
I flop down on the ground to allow my breathing to slow and
watch a glistening bead of sweat drip down my arm. I focus on the rhythm of the
rise and fall of my chest and bask in the afterglow of a successful run. A run
in which I had shattered my pace goals for every single mile. Though my muscles
are fatigued, I feel immeasurably strong. I hobble toward the bathroom. I am superwoman.
After a quick shower, I sit down at my desk and open my computer.
The words of my dissertation, black on a white page, stare back at me. I read
the most recent paragraph. Each word has its place, making sentences that flow
with confident precision. I place my cursor where I had left off, position my
hands on the keyboard, and begin to type.
