Standing Alone

Tears running down my face, my knees shaking at a million miles an hour, my head spinning so fast I felt my eyes rolling in the back of my head. For but a moment, I felt the winds of change glide through my hair and the bitter coldness of the morning air press against my skin. The sudden rush of emotions forced me to the ground leaving me with nothing but my own will to fight back. One moment. At that moment I was faced with making a choice between comfort and struggle. A choice that I believe so many of my peers, family, and friends have faced before me, but this was my time. My time to make my own path, run off the beaten road into the treacherous wilderness that was but a mystery to me. The path through the wilderness could have lasted an infinite amount of lifetimes for all I knew, but I didn’t care. It seemed that my whole life had led up to this moment; a choice between what I knew would work out and what could amount to my inevitable demise.

It would seem that a whole year’s worth of hard work led to my greatest defeat yet I was still presented with the choice between life or death, in that moment it was all or nothing. It all started but another instant before that. It was a different time like I was reborn or something. I had found something that I both loved and thrived in. It was a sort of test to test the limits of the human heart. Growing up I had always been told I may never have any talent in a sport or be any good for that matter, but I played with heart and passion. The two virtues I always highly valued, but I was still but a small fish in a large pond. Naturally, I was drawn to the sport, like a lion on a zebra I fed off of it. The goal every day was to be better than yesterday, that’s all it was, not to win or to be a champion. After my first season, I shaved off a total of three minutes off of my time. At the time I looked around and was proud to have even come as far as I had inside of three months. However, I had no idea that this moment would be followed by a dark cloud of doubt, mystery, and pain. It may have taken on the form of sickness, but it was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It was far worse. At that time I lost all of my friends, two of my grandparents fell to mental illness, and my heart was broken, all in a matter of two months. During this time I had to take care of my grandparents at home during school hours, keep up with running and pick up the remnants of my heart that lay hidden in the tall grass. Like a bear in the arctic, I was completely alone. In the middle of nowhere, starving searching for some sort of replenishment I was alone. Then I heard a few words that changed my mindset about pain, I no longer let that thick fog of agony dominate my life: “Pain is Temporary.” I was listening to a speech randomly generated by youtube when I heard this. Like Moses and the burning bush I knew God had sent that message to me somehow, I knew he was trying to urge me to keep pushing because something great could be around this corner. I started working out more and eating far less. The times I left my room I was weak and hardly able to balance on my own. My parents and caretaker worried alike, my brother and sister not knowing what was happening to me, and my relatives astonished at how much I had changed in such a short time. Thence came my biggest challenge yet, as the night: it is darkest before the dawn. Like a predator in the wild, I stalked my prey waiting for my moment to pounce for when that starting gun went off I would be ready. Louder than a train whizzing by, the gun went off and the race for the gold had started. Six-point-two miles on dirt trails, the wind pushing against my back like a sail I was streamlining around those turns and up those hills, it was my day. Again those words echoed in my head, louder this time like the Northern winds at night: “Pain is Temporary.” The finish line could not have come sooner, after two wrong turns onto different trails I was still in the lead, nobody could touch me. My first time ever racing a ten-kilometer race and I won, no matter, my legs were weak like spaghetti noodles I collapsed onto the ground. Out of breath and my heart smooshed like a tomato, I was out of breath. Luckily my parents came over, to take care of me. My fellow competitors and audience alike were astonished that a kid my age was running the race of this distance, let alone winning the whole thing. I stood alone.