Tears streamed down my face as I drove home from work to pick up my kids on Friday, December 14, 2012. I had just spent hours watching the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting unfold via Twitter and Facebook. There were hundreds of tweets and posts – many quite inaccurate and most very emotional. While I understand the need for many to share and grieve and publicly announce their disgust, it all just made me feel sick and anxious. [I needed so badly to run.]
Personally, I felt like a failure. I felt responsible. I felt like we could all have worked to prevent this. From. Happening. Again. I remember so clearly how this felt on April 20, 1999, when two boys decided to gun down their fellow classmates at Columbine High School – as we watched the live news coverage from a conference room at work. It was an incomprehensible horror that brought our Littleton suburb to its knees. We felt the effects of this for years afterwards and to this day I meet adults who were once those students trapped in that high school. These survivors continue to relive the horror in their nightmares and their day dreams. [After Columbine, I came home from work, played with my 3-year old boy and later went out for a long run.]
This happened again July 20, 2012. The Aurora Theater Shooting at the midnight premier of Batman – The Dark Knight Rises was just 25 miles away. It was the first midnight showing I had finally agreed to let my 16-year old son attend. He was not at the same theater that fateful night, but my imagination combined with my regret had him there hiding under the seats, dodging gunfire, and searching for an explanation. [The first reports flashed across the monitors as I ran on the treadmill at 5 a.m.]
As I drove through upper-middle class Highlands Ranch, my tears dried and my head cleared. I said out loud, “This needs to stop.” It will stop if people start to act and don’t just continue to wring their hands and shake their heads saying “Why does this happen? Why is the world so bad?” And, I will not allow this to simply exit my thoughts through an emotional Facebook post about gun control laws or bad parenting or poor security. I need to make a difference in some way. Before. This. Happens. Again. [Oh, how I needed a run. To clear my head. To breathe. To reflect.]
That was it. Running. Running gives us control. Running gives us strength. Running makes us complete. Running is often the key that enables us to take control over that which controls us – from addiction to depression. Maybe running is the missing piece to a healthy state of mind. Maybe there is hope for those we so quickly write off as having untreatable mental illness. Maybe, people just need something in their lives that can make them feel good and whole and fulfilled. That’s what running does for me. Every. Single. Day.
[To. Be. Continued.]
Well put, Callie. Agreed. “Maybe, people just need something in their lives that can make them feel good and whole and fulfilled.” Love is all we need.
Callie, thank you for this. Very well said.