“I should have stretched first,” I think as I lay on the floor of my room, wondering why it is always painful to begin anew.

Running is a good example. I was, as of November 2023, no longer a collegiate cross-country athlete. Well, I guess I could have run track, but my heart has not ached for the recycled rubber and tight turns for many moons, and with many other things on the docket, I decided to forgo this final opportunity and go out on my own terms.

I don’t regret the decision, but I do currently regret (still on the floor here) having to restart the process. It is as if your legs forgot how the hell to run as if we weren’t evolutionarily equipped with all the tools to be endurance runners (hint: we were). It is as if the ten years or so of running were all lost, and knees scream out in protest, shins burn and my arms flop around like northern pike. As if I didn’t run over 700 miles last summer, bruv (Ike, that one’s for you buddy).

Three miles. That’s all it was. It felt like so much longer. But, then again, every “first” run back feels a bit like this. You wonder why you’re doing it. And then you must make the decision to keep doing it because maybe, eventually, it gets a little less painful. The “why” is really the end-all-be-all.

The “why” for me has changed throughout the years. At first, it was out of a notion that it was the only sport that I could really be good at. It was also a way to get out of the atrocity that was Saturday marching band in high school, which I hated with passion — a passion that clearly, but unexpectedly still burns. By the end of high school, I didn’t want to give it up. Not yet. There was more to prove. So, when Luther said: “Hey, we’ll give you money to play French horn” (or something like that, don’t quote me) I saw a chance to keep running, to prove myself again.

I realize now that proving myself was never really a good mentality. Sure, it drove me, but it’s a fuel only useful for so long. In trying to do it all, I lost sight of the “why”. Where? I’m not sure. I can only know that it was missing. And it sent me down a road of recovering my body, my mind and my “why.”

My best piece of advice in creating a “why” is not my own, but rather, from a fellow Luther student. I think he’s graduated by now, probably in dental school or some such place. As we were commiserating about a short story due soon in creative writing class, Daniel B. said:

“Write like it doesn’t matter.”

It seems so simple, perhaps silly enough to scoff at and move on from. But it makes sense. What happens when we write, run, perform without the expectation that it matters? Sure, it’s paradoxical because it needs to matter, at least enough for us to do it. But it doesn’t have to matter in the sense of the grade or the approval of others. Without the expectations, we can do the thing for the sake of doing it and figure out why we really do something that is difficult, challenging, or even a little painful. It ends up mattering even more because you’ve done it for yourself.

What does my “why” look like today? Let’s see if this vision helps you.

It’s a run toward Ice Cave and the afternoon air is brisk in places and at Casey’s a tanker truck is refilling the underground gas tanks with the remains of dinosaurs or ancient plant matter. The dogs bark out their greetings from inside their fences and on the sidewalk is someone from class, and we attempt a fist bump but miss, too fast are the both of us, but I manage a laugh and a “sorry” and he does likewise.

The crosswalk by the-place-which-shall-not-be-named is new and endorphins course through my blood because it is satisfying to push a button and watch the cars slow to a halt. The flashing lights hold the cars back as bulwarks against the waves; Moses parting the Red Sea and I run across before the waves once again begin to crash.

Toward Dunnings Spring and the firewood and the eggs for sale for two dollars and I remember that I sold my chicken’s eggs when I was younger for the same price because somehow inflation hasn’t raised the price of extremely local eggs and they’re probably just trying to get rid of them; we always had eggs coming out of our ears.

Up the hill toward Ice Cave and an older gentleman walks by and watches me with a solid stare and I make eye contact for a second and continue on. The air is colder and soon I reach Ice Cave and turn around and accidentally scare the gentlemen on the way back, who is stretching his arms out as if as a bird about to take flight.

Passing by all of those places I had seen from the other side just a moment ago but somehow they are all a little different from this angle. And I reach the Center Street hill and there is a little child in a parent’s arms who points at me as I attempt the hill and I think “I must not slow down” but then I do because my legs hurt and it’s not worth it. Greeting me at the top of the hill is a professor I know out for a walk with their beagle, and we wave at each other.

And though it has been a run all alone, I have been filled with the world and am a little bit lighter than before. The baggage of the day is left at the house door and while I must go once again into the breach, I have new resolve and new ideas.

So “why” run? The answer will necessarily be different for everyone — perhaps your answer is not to run at all. Sometimes the answer is to run, to do the thing, as if it doesn’t matter. Sometimes getting out there is all that truly matters.