Garbage

Didn’t Oscar the Grouch have a league of dirty-children followers called Grouch-keteers?

I think so, and that image was my driving force on this morning’s trashy run. I took a full rest day yesterday and therefore felt like a fat, aimless dump of a girl this morning when I began to run.

The lakefront path greeted me with Memorial Day garbage. Everywhere. A pervasive metaphor for how I felt.

There were bags and bottles and boxes. Tipped over, abandoned strollers forcing me to search the horizon for bobbing baby heads in the surf.

Bones strewn all along the way, reminding me of the inevitability of my own picked-over carcass.

And limes. Soooo many slivers of lime. This conjured the very last image I need when I’m trying to run 6 miles—hipster twentysomethings drinking Coronas and drunkenly singing along to Arcade Fire or whatever the kids do these days.

Add to ‘trash day’ that I wore the wrong pants—the ones where my gut hangs over the waistband. Every runner who ran towards me was staring at me as if I was the Rebel Wilson character in Bridesmaids and how dare I leave the house thinking I’m an athlete! (I’m not paranoid or anything.)

Runners, however, will be able to predict the end of this story. The rage and discomfort building up throughout the 6+ actually made it an excellent run. Pissed-offness and joy can equally spur you on, I’ve found. And, like I always say—when it’s over you’re done and you did it. Circumstances become a faint memory.

New York City might also have been sending me a sign. The garbage on the street there is one negative part of the place. But I think New Yorkers acknowledge it as a dirty and necessary part of their hearty identities. If I can run through garbage, I can make it anywhere. So sang Frank Sinatra.