The Finish Line is a Moving Target

I ran a 10K this weekend from Burlington to Collinsville, Connecticut.  It was a beautiful course that followed the Farmington River.  When I signed up for the race a few months ago, I had made a promise to myself that no matter what, I was going to run and I was going to finish.  In the past, I would have made myself nervous about the distance, worried about the fact that I hadn't run this long a race in three years, and that I hadn't been running on a regular basis.   The night before the race I couldn't sleep.  I tossed and turned, thinking "what a stupid idea."  Like I was going to spring out of bed at 6:30 a.m., bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to run 6.2 miles before my first cup of coffee.  

I had carefully picked out my running attire the night before; my favorite fuschia color long sleeve shirt from the "Breath" line at Gap, a pair of soft, full-length tights that also contained hints of purple, black and brown, all mixed together in a heather pattern, and the pair of Nike Zoom Winflo 3 sneakers that my sister allowed me to buy over the winter with her Bloomingdale's employee discount.  I even matched it with an Athleta head wrap, which would soak up my sweat and pull back my unruly bangs.  Sure, it all looked good, but when I arrived at the start line, I would inevitably look around at all of the other runners and feel like I didn't belong.  They'd all be wearing their Brooks running shoes, brightly colored compression socks, Camelbacks full of water (or booze or Coca Cola - who knows what's in those things?), and worst of all, their bragging rights t-shirts and tank tops from all of the other fancy races they've completed.  Waiting in line to use the Port-o-Let, I stared at a man's densely muscled calf on which he had tattooed the Iron Man logo and thought, I'll never come close to competing in a triathlon, not with my ridiculous fear of natural bodies of water.

I've been an athlete almost my entire life.  I've played many team sports including softball, field hockey, and basketball.  I was never excellent at any of them, but one thing was clear - I could run.  When I was younger, I was a sprinter and would expend myself, in short, controlled bursts, but as I grew older, I found that going on long-distance runs was a way to give myself space, free my mind and release stress.  

The same can be said for why I am in an MFA program now.  When I was younger, I wasn't the best student, but I could write my way into or out of anything.  It was the defining characteristic of who I was and everyone in my family labeled me as "the writer."  During my undergraduate program, I was too distracted to identify the fact that I needed writing as a creative outlet.  Instead, I identified what I thought was going to be the quickest route to getting a job and starting a career and I chose Journalism.  

Now, years later I am giving myself the time to earn a degree that will honor my writing and vindicate my identity as a writer.  However, with each class that I start in this MFA, I experience the pre-race jitters, the self-doubt, the apprehension - it's all part of a lifelong battle with self-esteem.  

I remember reading some of my classmates' posts the first week of my first course, and it felt just like being amongst that sea of runners who were faster, stronger and more athletic than me, but in this group, it was their brains that were tattooed with Iron Man symbols.  Their beautiful phrasing and advanced vocabulary made me feel just as unqualified and inferior as when I get into the queue at a race.  I'm a middle of the pack type of person.  I don't necessarily excel at anything in particular, but I hold my own most of the time.   

As the first semester played out, I had my ups and downs with craft pieces.  I was doing a lot of "throat clearing" at the beginning of essays and rushing through scenes without adding the proper description or dialogue.  I took on three classes but realized that with my job and personal responsibilities I was taxing myself and so I promised not to do that again.  I didn't hit my stride until the middle of the second semester when I started to write about the most defining incident of my life; my parent's accident and my father's death.  Throughout that semester and during the summer writing seminar in Dingle, Ireland, I worked on a piece that I hope to ultimately turn into my thesis and figured out what strategies I need to employ to get through this degree.  When it came time to choose a professional track, I chose Publishing and immersed myself in learning about an industry of which I knew very little, other than what I had seen in movies and on television (another shoutout to Younger my TVLand binge-worthy series).  

Which brings me to the current semester and the internship I've completed at Cleaver Magazine.  As an editorial intern, I have read submissions for Creative Non-Fiction and aided in the proofreading of Issue 17.  My favorite part of this experience by far has been reading and voting on the submissions. Until this point in the MFA program, I was only critiquing the work of my classmates.  With the notoriety of Cleaver, I've had the privilege to read the work of writers from across the world and from all different backgrounds and levels of experience.  Reading these submissions and having my opinions about them taken into account when considering them for publication has been incredibly valuable.  Now, I'm not only an aspiring writer, but I'm an editor who can help other writers. And I'm not finished yet!  Cleaver is a quarterly publication that receives hundreds of submissions and there is always the need for editors, and so I've agreed to stay on as an intern indefinitely, helping out when and where I can.  As a runner, the idea of pushing a finish line back could be the death knell, but in this case, I see this as an opportunity to help grow my overall appreciation of different writing styles and genres.  

This weekend, I finished my 10K with a decent pace of 8:23 per mile.  As I stood in line at the race results tent, I watched the tall, lean blonde woman in front of me house a cup of free chili and cornbread.  I remembered seeing her in a bright pink tank-top on the course, she had finished at least 10 minutes before I did and I was jealous.  But then I listened to her and her friend talking about the attempted feat of a Kenyan runner who just days before had come within 25 seconds of running the elusive 2:00 marathon.  I was reminded that we're all chasing something, whether it's a real milestone, a social status, an educational goal, or an emotion and we're often envious of those who seem to have what we want.  Later in the day when I logged on to my computer, I checked my email and found the link to the race photos.  I scanned through the proofs and found this picture of me - middle of the pack.  But then I zoomed in and saw that I was smiling as I was running.  You can't really make it out with the pixelated version I've posted, but I know that I was happy while I was running.  

Burlington to Collinsville 10K, 5/7/17

In April 2015 I lost my father and have spent the last two years taking care of my disabled mother, whose future is still uncertain but getting brighter every day.  There have been many times that I have doubted my ability to shoulder life's responsibilities while still trying to carve out a piece of sanctuary for myself but I'm slowly doing it.  My MFA, my running, my well-being are things I'm striving for and maybe, just maybe I'll get there in the end.