[m.olson]

I’ve been having these rolling feelings; like waves or gusts of wind. I recently decided to switch from running in the morning to running at night. By recently, I mean today. I ran once in the morning (when I was lucky enough to actually wake up early enough to make the temperature outside bearable for such activities).

I alternate running as hard as I can for as long as I can with fast-paced (read: power) walking. I find this makes for a more effective workout than just jogging for an hour. The route I take puts me on an underpass beneath railroad tracks. Tonight, I ran farther than I did when I ran in the morning, but was hesitant to turn around. I wanted to just run forever, as if it were something that would be a sustainable activity, albeit a cowardly one. Then, over the music in my headphones, I heard a train whistle in the distance. I didn’t stop to think how far away the tracks were, but luckily I did stop to make sure I wasn’t going to get hit by a car as I made a 180 back toward the underpass.

I wanted so badly to be beneath the crushing sound of the engine, the cars, the weight of it all. The railroad is the closest thing this city has to the sea, with its rhythm, motion and vast power. I wanted the sound to become syncopated with all the waves of feelings in my head, to balance it out, to get lost in it, for it to get lost in me…

I could see the train. I saw the headlight and the engine. I heard the sound grow as I approached. I was almost there. Then, just as it had arrived, the train was gone. The rushing stopped, the sound faded, the weight rolled onward. I stood and stooped down at the edge of the underpass and considered just staying there to wait for another train, another disaster, another ocean.

I think part of growing up is realizing that a lot of your dreams will come true if you want them to, but also that a lot of your dreams are likely outside your control. The ones that are outside your control are the dreams that you can’t hold onto or get discouraged by when they don’t work out. Those are the dreams that you can change, or they become the ones that make you forget about all the ones that are attainable. Those are the dreams that can be the downfall of everything else if you let them control you. When you realize that, it’s really hard for you to be sad about it. It isn’t hard to be disappointed, but being sad seems silly when it’s so easy to shift.

(Source: icatchfoxes)