Hurt

Miles, hours. Every time out I wonder: What'll the cost of reflection be today?

I know I've told you before. I'm sure I'll tell you again. But still: This hurts. This hurt takes time to process. And process I angrily shall, all through the miles it appears, until I've no more to process at all - or at least until the fatigue blurs it all to apathy.

I'd never been fired before. But then I'd never worked for such incompetence, for such a sad sack of human garbage, either. The irony of a fervent Bernie supporter who in so many ways more clearly resembles Trump, for truth he cannot tell, for ethics he does not possess, for morality he's never held.

So, yes, I'm still angry.

The miles are coming back around, and if I've still an extra fifty-pound pack on all these adventures - yet another piece of baggage from those 2 1/2 years that now feel increasingly lost - I'm doing my damnedest to lose it. Maybe as the pounds come off, so too will the emotional baggage? We gave our everything, and nary a thank you in return - just betrayal and the loss of our jobs.

"If you've nothing positive to say, say nothing at all," so my words remain silent, and that too, feels like something that's been taken away. Maybe that, too, will come back only as the fat melts off - I've hope, still, of finding my voice again, anyway.

I've ideas, at least - two different collections I want to work on, and a whole number of writing prompts besides. Just not the words to go with.

I know you know this feeling. We've each our respective silences, and I respect yours, understand it, even as I'm trying not to embrace my tendency these days to the same. I'm trying to remember and embrace the power of community, even as I realize how much of this community we gave our lives to cares only about themselves. But, then, that's their right, isn't it?

Caring only about yourself might be the most white privileged American trait there is, and trail runners are nothing if not largely homogeneous - large groups of privileged white men and women, trading one addiction for another.

I'm not as bitter always, I don't think. I'm okay, or close enough to fine to fake my way through most days. And sometimes faking it through just has to be enough. You understand, of course.

But yes, I'm still angry, even as I'm tired, even as I'm sore, even as the miles (slow, painful) are beginning to pile up once again, even as trail food theses days means huckleberry patches and mountain streams, even as the high country is wide open and free, even as our apartment feels each day more like home, even as the alpine lakes feel less like ice and more like comfortably cold - I'm still angry.

So here's to embracing the fire, feeding the flames, and making something of it. And here's to brothers who understand - understand the masks we wear, why we run, the sweat we stink. And here's to breaking the silence.

As a wise friend once noted: "I'm not sugarcoating shit anymore." Neither should we.