Today I had to fight the urge to meet with
an old love. As Rohan’s car pulled out of the driveway the thought flickered
across my mind, ‘I could go now’. I looked outside, the sky was grey, a light
drizzle of rain fell, I had an hour or so to spare before work, enough time. I
told myself that Rohan didn’t need to know, that no-one needed to know. This
could just be my little secret.
I stopped myself, wondering what the hell I
was thinking. You might be wondering the same. What is this desire to hook up
with an old flame? I know it will only
end one way. It’s a slippery slope and it leads to disaster.
I think the slippery slope began last
Monday.
I woke up, rivers of irritation and
adrenalin flitting under my skin. I jumped on the bike and pedaled, hard and
fast until beads of sweat rolled down into my eyes. 45 minutes later, I stepped
off, my heart beating faster but the itch still needed scratching. I walked into the kitchen, sneakers still on
and announced, ‘I’m going for a run’. Rohan looked at me -no words - just a
look that said ‘do you not remember last November?’
Ah yes, November. Maybe that’s when the
slippery slope began. The fateful month when I sat in a surgeon’s office in
Hawthorn, an office normally filled with AFL players. Instead it was me and I was
shown the images of bruising running all the way up my bones, the lack of
cushioning in my knee and the inevitable signs leading to replacement surgery.
This was the last in my list of surgeons, a recommended knee surgeon, a
specialist for people like me. When I asked him about running, he told me my
running days were over, possibly my bike days too - pointing once again at the MRI
showing the bruising on my bones, he tapped home his point with his pen. The
bruising extended high up despite the fact that I hadn’t run for 4 months and
was still recovering from an arthroscope. ‘Find something else,’ he said.
Find something else.
Instead, I found myself in the kitchen on
Monday, 7 months later, arguing my case. ‘I’ll just go for a short run. Just
2ks. Just to the bridge and back. I just need to run off this stress. Once I
go, the itch will be scratched. It will be fine. One last time’.
Rohan looked at me like I was a maniac. I
became defiant. ‘I’m going anyway, so don’t tell me not to. I’m not asking for
permission. I’m just letting you know where I’m going’. He looked resigned, handed
me his crappy, old phone and I zipped it into the pocket of my leggings and
took off.
Out on the footpath, the air was crisp and
cold and my feet tapped lightly on the concrete. I crossed onto the grass down
by the creek. The path was quiet and still. Me, my thoughts, and the track
before me. My knees didn’t feel creaky. There was no noise from them, none of
that crepitus that sounds like a rusty gate scraping over concrete. My breath
fell into a familiar pattern. Thoughts flicked in and out of my brain. The
lyrics of The Cruel Sea thrummed like a mantra in my head, ‘my heart is a
muscle and it pumps blood like a big old black steam train, my veins are the
tracks and the city is my brain’. Here in this moment, I had a surge of pure
happiness.
All too soon, I had reached the bridge, the
halfway mark, it was time to turn back. Is this it? Are we done so quickly? I
headed back and into the house. I handed Rohan his phone and he exchanged it
for ice packs which I strapped onto my knees with a pair of old stockings. Ice,
elevate. Ice, elevate. Ice, elevate. That night, I rubbed arthritis cream into
my knees and hid the fact that when I walked my knees felt stiff and clunky.
Easy. The itch was scratched.
Until this morning.
This morning, the itch was back. I
contemplated running, and not just going for a run, but taking it up again.
Just a sneaky run, once a week. No more, no less. I don’t need to tell anyone.
What kind of damage can one short run a week do? If I don’t tell anyone, no-one
will know. Surely with just one run, the bruising won’t get too bad? There’s no
cartilage in my knees anyway, so it’s not like I can damage it any further?
Just one little run each week. No big deal. The desire intensified as I read a
newspaper column written by someone I went to school with. Brigid
is writing of her foray into running and I’m seething with jealousy. Here she
is, on the verge of the infatuation, about to fall headlong in love with it.
Oh, those halcyon days when you strap on your shoes, head out the door and all
is possible. I remember them. I want to feel them again.
See the slippery slope? Like an abandoned
lover who just wants to go back for one last night of passion, I yearn for
another run.
I
can justify it in a million different ways. Reason has left the building. The
person in the surgeon’s office looking at that fateful MRI seems like someone
else.
The problem is that it won’t just be one
run. I had one run on Monday and look at me now - jittery, jangled, wanting
more. Hooked on the endorphins that running blasts through my system, I won’t
be able to satisfy myself with just one run a week. So I try and talk myself
out of it. I try and talk myself into swimming. It’s cold and wet and miserable
in Ballarat and the thought of pulling on bathers makes me nauseous. I think of heading
to the Pilates studio, but the thought of it makes me more frustrated and I’m
not seeking the stillness it provides. I’m seeking something that makes my
heart pound until I am breathless.
I jump on the bike again and pedal hard
until my knees ache.
Meanwhile, the itch lurks beneath the
surface. Is it only a matter of time until I scratch it again?
