Dear You,

What’s the fastest you’ve ever run?

It doesn’t matter which direction you were heading, really. You could’ve been leaping and bounding over a crowded highway to reach a lost love. You could’ve been mad-dashing from a bee on the elementary school playground– So long as you’re running. 

Running says something about us that few things can. It reminds us of the pure, guttural feelings. The ones that hide deep in our subconsciousness. In the briefest of seconds, all our natural instincts are attuned to things we’ve been suppressing for days, months, years: 

Fear.

Desperation.

Rage.

And despite everything, love. 

It doesn’t matter where you are: The middle of an open field, an overcrowded ballroom on a December night. Running is an escape from something.

So what are you escaping? Terror? Confrontation? Reality?

Running reveals the things that terrify us. The things we want to escape in desperate self-preservation. But it also reveals the things we care about more than anything. The things we run to. The only things that can get us to speed through traffic like our life depends on it. Or push through congested crowds at seven in the morning. And nothing is more telling of a person than what they care about- even more than what terrifies them. 

Me, I’m never running to anything, always away. I find the smallest crevices to slip between, so long as I can just go. Because I’m afraid of everything. Especially you. 

But the fastest I ever ran… that was different. 

The sun was beaming, light flooding in all directions. The air was crisp, cold. In a split second, I just decided to bolt. Down the street. Down the sidewalk. 

Everything in me screamed to just… go. 

And for once… For once, I wasn’t running from anything. But I wasn’t running to anything either. I was just running. It was pure freedom like I’d never felt. I spread my arms out, like I was catching the wind between my fingers. And there was a moment. A sweet, beautiful moment only I could feel.

In that instant, it didn’t matter where I was going. It didn’t matter if I reached my destination, or if whatever could’ve been chasing me caught up. Because in an instant, all of it could be possible. 

Running can be fear. Bolting from things trying to pull us back into our worst nightmares.

Running can be love. Tripping over your own feet as you race to say all the things you wish you had said a million years ago.

Running can be anything. 

But in that single moment, the wind in your hair and the future in front of you, it doesn’t matter. 

Every bit of hope, hope to escape, hope for embrace, hope to arrive, lives in that moment. You don’t know if you’ll get where you’re going or if you’ll just end up turning around in defeat. 

But you don’t care. Because you’re caught in the hope of it all… Because right now, all you can do is try. Try to actually reach for what you want for once in your life. 

And in that moment… it’s enough. It’s enough to try, because hey, at least there’s a chance. At least there’s a will and a way. A possibility. And these days we spend our lives riding the backs of fleeting possibilities. At least I do. 

You know by now that I’m always asking you things, wondering about your answers in the pockets of silence between words. And I don’t want to wonder you away. I don’t want to be the reason you run. 

So I’m not going to ask about running. I’m not going to ask you how it feels. Because I know. Maybe we’ve all lived our own lives, all trapped in different cages of our own making. And maybe that makes us too different to share most things. But no one can dictate the way the sun feels on your face. No one can stop the wind from ruffling your hair. And we’ve all known freedom like that. Some of us just forgot how it felt. 

This time, I’m telling you: Run. 

Run for the hills. Run forward. Run backward. Just… go. 

Feel the breeze in your hair and the sun on your face. Catch the wind between your fingers. 

Get lost in the moment. The moment where all is possible. The moment where, despite everything, we find the will to try.

Run.

And never look back.  

Sincerely the girl who’s not looking for a reason to go,  

Me.