I’m running from something

Exercise has been a really good thing for me for a long time. I landed on running several years ago after being a gym rat and it’s come to feel like home. I mostly like doing it and I like how I feel after I do it.

Plus, there’s something about me that gets great satisfaction in having something I know I want and need to do nearly everyday. I can’t stress how valuable it is to have a daily ritual that gives me something I know I can start and finish all in the same day.

But, I’ve just become aware in the last week that I’m now using running and any other exercise I do as a way to avoid other things. Lately I’ve been spending 90 to 120 minutes on my daily workouts when I used to rarely go more than 60. And I’ve been denying this change and telling her she’s crazy when my wife comments on it.

Last night I found myself into my fourth mile after 10pm after having spent an hour working out in my home gym (a pull-up bar, a folding chair, and half a dozen dumbbells) when I realized something might be up. Maybe I wasn’t just running because the resistance workout wasn’t a high enough calorie burner and because I want to keep my runners legs. Maybe I wasn’t going for a run before bed just to clear my mind and ensure that I had done at least one thing that day I didn’t find ultimately disappointing. Maybe I wasn’t running to get and keep health in my life but instead to try and avoid things that are important to me and that I deeply care about but am finding increasingly terrifying.

I quickly thought of two major things that could easily be what my excessive exercise was helping me avoid.

One: If I can work out long enough and late enough every night the wife will be asleep or nearly asleep and I won’t have to contemplate having a conversation about the surprisingly few but worryingly significant issues I don’t think are being addressed between us. If I’m just working out to be fit and take care of myself how can that be a bad thing, right. But if I’m working out so I can wait the wife out and not communicate, well that doesn’t just do harm to what is easily the most important and worthwhile relationship I’ve every been a part of, but it also taints my running. Neither of which is okay with me.

Two: I’ve lost all confidence in my ability to write anything worth a damn. Seriously, that’s it. I know I’ve been capable of writing things I’m proud of in the past. I have things I’ve written that I am excited about sharing with people live on stage. Things I know are funny and good and still have a truth for me. But I can’t seem to convince myself that I’m that same person. I no longer think I can write something good or something funny. I want to be a writer but when I think about writing, and I’m almost never not thinking about writing, I want to throw up.

I know this insecurity in one’s writing is unoriginal. And that pisses me off too.

This brings me to the purpose of this posting. I haven’t posted a blog entry since September and I didn’t think I would post another blog entry. But, I’m working on a writing project and I do want to be a writer both as my profession and as a large portion of my identity so I’m going to make myself be a writer. My fear can go frag itself. I’m going to pile crap upon crap on this blog everyday, or nearly everyday, until I recognize the writer that’s somewhere in my head hiding. And then I’m going to write some more.

I almost decided to stop running yesterday because it occured to me that my running is a way of hiding from my fear of sucking as a writer. But being fat and out of shape isn’t going to make me a writer. Writing is. So I’m going to write.

LW