A RUNNER’S HIGH: BELONGING IN SUNLIGHT

by Joshua Burrell

I first felt belonging where I first felt free. Freedom always goes back to running and heartbreak for me. The first place I felt like I belonged was running and to this day it’s the one thing I can do that makes my heart feel less heavy. 

In 2007, I was the youngest and smallest person on my track team. Before I had endurance, I had an energy that ran into the ground. I was close to being cut for not keeping up with older and stronger kids until my mother stepped in, “If you can run a full mile without stopping, I’ll buy you a Nintendo DS,” she said. In some odd summer month, on an empty track close to my childhood home, I ran to my heart’s content for the first time. Every time I wanted to stop, fire in my lungs, and legs heavy with eager energy, the tiny woman yelled, “You got it! Keep going, baby!” I’d have let myself down before I let her down, so for her sake, I kept running. Lead in my legs and led by her voice, I leaped into my mom’s arms at the finish line.

 I don’t remember how fast or for how long I ran, yet I remember that my mom was with me when I finished my first mile. 

That smile on my face at the end of those four laps stayed on through the intro screen for Mario N64 DS. I played my first Pokémon game on that console. I got my first migraine from playing that console too much. And finally, dual screens split in two by angry teenager hands, I felt one of my first heartbreaks when my older brother broke my system in two. That heartbreak foreshadowed a later lesson: not to be attached to flashy things that promise good times. 

Flash forward eight years. I’d been running track in high school for a year and a half. I got a confidence boost from my first kiss a few weeks before shooting my first successful shot at the mall with friends. Under clementine-orange lights, I saw a group of girls. One’s ear’s complemented by shimmering, round hoops. I sauntered through her circle of friends, complimented her directly, and asked for the number that was ensconced in my contacts when my ma scooped me later. After weeks of volleying wild texts around, I eventually landed at her parent’s front door like a Trojan horse. Goes without saying what happened had fueled a fire in me for the first time: love. If only that love was struck with matches made in heaven. 

We couldn’t agree on what we were and I could only be romantic with words at 16. Not a month after “making infatuation”, my heart was shattered like fine china, and for days from no plate could I eat a morsel. While I was being tortured by no responses, my mother stepped in and drove me to that house where my fall-in-love started. We left with no answer, but a text minutes later from the new guy sharing kisses with her made the floor hit me. I’d never felt so low in my life.

I slept less for some time. Some days I’d sit next to my piano through the night and ask for intervention. If I ever did sleep, I slept and woke up feeling alone. A few weeks after that, I was no longer committed to high school relationships. Everything felt vapid, stupid, boring, childish, and light compared to how heavy my heartfelt for most days. Although my heartbreak made me feel heavy, every weekday at 3:00 pm I was free to run away from my issues at track practice. When I wasn’t running I was disassociating by diving into obscure music like Brazilian Jazz and 70s soft rock. I ran so hard that season that I was chosen to run relays for Maryland state finals for Track and Field. 

By state finals, I was half-recovered until I stepped off the team bus at Morgan State University. Early-summer heat, sweat, competition, and excitement in the air, I noticed a flustered, familiar face that shared my embarrassment and vague infuriation. I knew she’d be there. She was the first thing I saw at the last place where I needed to be distracted. 

The day slid by like melting ice cream on a wooden stick. The sun shined on me all day and by the time it was setting I didn’t care about anything other than the music in my ears. My heartfelt content. At some point that day, I stopped worrying about her because I had the option to be heavy-hearted or run toward joy with no limits but the headwind. After I ran and the meet was finally ending, everything was coated with citrus sweet sunlight that felt like my mother’s voice. On the way home, I sat on the back of the bus listening to music and I shared a brief moment’s clarity with no longer friends. My heart and ears belonged to the love in the resting sun.