I’m a runner.

I’ve felt the pain in my legs and the burning of my lungs from carrying myself long distances, but that’s not really what I mean. I mean: I run away from things and I run towards things. I run away from people who actually care about me. I run away from commitment. I run away from who I am and towards who people want me to be. I run away from anything that gets even the slightest bit serious. I run into drama (although, never on purpose). Sometimes I run with the wrong crowd, but I desperately fight to speed up and break away from the pack. I run after dreams I will probably never catch, and I run away from nightmares I hope will never catch me. If you are a runner, you know how tiring it can be; so sometimes, I let myself sit. I sit in the moment. I sit and think about running—how far I’ve gone and how far I’m going to go. As soon as my heart becomes too comfortable and starts to beat at a normal pace, I get scared. Again, I start to run. It’s a cycle, a useless one, but yet I follow it without fail. I guess you could say, I’m trying to run away from running. But it’s just who I am, a runner. It’s probably who I’ll be for the rest of my life. Maybe someday I’ll be done running; my soul will have had enough. Maybe, I’ll fall into step with someone else that is done running and we’ll stroll through the rest of this funny thing called life together. Or more likely, I’ll fall into step with someone who is taking a break from running. When they’re ready, they’ll start running again. My tired legs will already know they cannot keep up, they have done their fair share of leaving. Tasting the dust that the other will leave behind will only remind me of all the people I’ve left behind on my journey.