My Inner Child

I think that we all have our own inner child. I like to hope we do. It is what maintains our innocence.

We want attention.
We want to be valued.
We get scared
We show off.

It isn't as obvious and we are ashamed of it, but we all have that inner child still brewing inside of us. It shows, but in the most unlikely of places....like on a run.

I decided to change things up today and run a different three mile loop. I was going to run to a one mile loop in the woods, that was one mile away. Putting all of that together means that I would be running three miles today. About a quarter of the mile from the run, off the main road I was running on, 3 kids were messing around on the razor scooters. They were shouting over to me and taunting me. I responded the best way to respond to those kinds of things. I completely ignored them. Because, hopefully, they would realize how stupid they were being. But an abused runner can only dream.

When I reached the trail, the back entrance that I used to always go into, was covered in weeds. It could still be vaguely seen, but it looked menacing. I didn't want to go in there, but there was no turning back now. I traipsed in and the trail was just as menacing as it used to be. I continued to run as fast as I could. The trees were close by and I just imagined some sort of monster snatching me up. The woods trail turned onto a wooden bridge with reeds twice my size surrounding it. I heard them rustling and then splashing. I was certain the monster was going to get me, and I sprinted the rest of the woods trail and jumped right back onto the road. I haven't been scared like that since I was six, to be honest I don't know what came over me.

The last mile went terrible, most likely from sprinting the last mile. While I was struggling, I remembered those three kids on the razor scooters, and I didn't want them to see me like this. I wanted them to see me in all of my glory. I wanted them to see that they were making fun of one bad ass mother fucker. So when I began to hear their voices but they weren't in sight, I started to pick up the pace. By the time they could see me, I ran by them in a brisk pace and I didn't even hear a word from them. I like to think it was because I silenced them, but really it was most likely because they didn't even see me much less care how I was doing on my run.

When I turned onto my street, I almost keeled over and barely finished. I let my inner child take over on the run for me today. It was foolish but good to know that I still have some innocence.