Without Tiring

Yesterday, I went on a run with my oldest friend, adopted sister, and long time running/ spiritual/ musical guru. As is typical during such runs, diaphragmatic inhales interrupted long bouts of vocal ponderings about our pasts, presents, and futures--all of which, God willing, are intimately intertwined.  Most recently, our conversation centered around the future part.  We find ourselves in the exact center of our college lives.  The next step is, indeed, a career and potentially motherhood--what is known to many as real life.  Oh boy.

As providence would have it (or perhaps, a combination of luck and living in a small city) we passed two girls with whom we attended high school.  Women, rather. Yes, definitely women, and that was what was so striking. Both were pushing children in strollers, and while one clarified that she worked as a nanny for the bubbling light source in her stroller, the other was undoubtedly the mother of the slightly disgruntled one year old boy.  We stopped to chat; small talk was all that was possible between women whose acquaintanceship had eroded nearly to the point of unfamiliarity by three years time and experience.  We flashed them farewell smiles, and jogged on.

On our return loop to the car (which we would soon realize we had unfortunately locked ourselves out of, but that's besides the point), Guru and I again crossed paths with the women.  The mother laughed as we passed. "They're still running!"

Still running.

It is kind of impressive, isn't it? Three years came and went.  There were so many moments in which we--Guru, or Mother, or Mother's Best Friend, or children--could have failed.  We're still alive: breathing and pumping blood and blinking and converting ADP to ATP to power our run. And for some of us--well, one of us--finding it within herself to reach the zenith of selflessness; that is, breathing and pumping blood and blinking and converting ADP to ATP not just for herself but for another.  Perhaps even greater than that, withstanding the judging eye of the Conservative South and the even more Conservative Catholic School community within it to be able to move on. To smile. To laugh while taking a walk with her best friend from high school.  To positively glow while doing it.

Their friendship lasted.  Mine has lasted with Guru, despite my bossy beginnings as a best friend, her frustrated middle school bullying, our difference of interests in high school, and our colleges upwards of 600 miles  away from each other.  Our futures, as we discovered, were spiraling in wildly different directions.  I swell with pride a little bit every time I talk about my friendship with her, because with all of my failings it is truly a miracle that such a fragile connection, so easily severed, could withstand them.  We're still running.  That's kind of cool.