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Sometimes weird events can make me momentarily forget the pain of losing a child. Take, for example the recent day the following happened: “What are you doing?” Christy and I were at the gym in the throes of an intense class when the instructor asked us to spring around the track three times. We were about half way through the first lap when she popped that question. I looked at that girl long and hard in her big dark eyes. “I am running.” I replied. “Why?” “Well......” her voice trailed off awkwardly. “Ummmmm.” “I am running, I am running!” I said, as I continued to run. “It’s just that you are taking, I don’t know, six steps to my one stride.” This is where Christy took wrong turn down memory lane. Little did Christy know, but I had a history of being mocked about my running. This all began way back in elementary school when we played kickball in the field behind our class. It goes without saying that I was one of the last kids picked to the team. I don’t even need to regale you with the stories of the two team captains saying, “I don’t want Kimra; YOU can have her, “ until the biggest loser ended up with my little chicken legs ineffectively missing the kickball for his or her team. Let’s not even go into all of that. What I DO want to discuss is the way the kids would laugh in the instance of the rare miracle where I actually got to run to first base. “You run like an ELF!” A mean kid shouted one day; and that went over like gangbusters, I am here to tell you. The shouts of glee and agreement from the other elf-haters rose into the air, and the name stuck. The stigma of running like an elf never left me. When I was in high school P.E., I had a great group of friends. We loved each other like crazy; and did everything together. Those girls had my back, and I could count on them to support me in my every endeavor. Every endeavor until basketball. Basketball, my friends, for those of you as blissfully unaware as I once was, involves a little deal called running. So the first time I laced up my Adidas knockoffs from Pay-less and took to the court, I wasn’t thinking about my elfy run. I was just mentally praying and hoping that my short self could throw the basketball in the REGION of the hoop. I was already imagining how heavy hat ball would seem to my chicken arms and how it would most likely fall thousands of feet away from the hoop. P.E. was NOT my favorite class. So I started dribbling the ball and running down the court when my really good chum Leslie shouted, “Oh my gosh; I forgot how much you run like an elf.” “She does! She does run like an elf.” My very best friend Michelle piped. I stared at Michelle as meanly as I could while trying to maneuver my way down the court. She and I spent tons of time together and she KNEW I ran like an elf and I THOUGHT we had an unspoken agreement not to ever bring that subject up in public. Now here she was, outing me as an elf-runner and with no remorse on her face. Flash forward thirty years and I am training for my first marathon. My hubby regularly has to comment that my stride, which I swear I am TRYING to lengthen, is something like five steps to his one. I run thirty miles a week, and I do it, sadly for me, like an aging elf. “What. are. you. doing?” Christy was dumbfounded by the snappy little gait I call running; and others call “elf running.” More specifically, my own beloved hubby who has promised to love, honor and cherish me, calls my running, “elfing it up.” Now, here I was outed as an elf runner once again in front of one of undeniably the fittest and coolest chicks at the entire gym. A thousands curses on my elfy feet at the bottom of my elfy legs. I mentally chastised myself for not stretching my legs in a more normal pattern in public. I think she could see the shame in my eyes as I continued to elf it up around the track (I am not one to break habits easily and forty plus years of elfy running is more than a habit, I am afraid), and she softened. “I could help you lengthen your stride, if you like.” She said, kindly. I agreed to take her up on the offer, knowing deep inside that it would take a small miracle to stop me from elfing it up on the track. Still, it couldn’t hurt to try, I reasoned, and any activity which can temporarily divert me from the reality of my new sad life cannot be all bad. I figure that my anti-elf training can just add to the arsenal of coping skills I am trying to hone, and one day I may actually run like a regular human being.
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