if all else fails

run

I don’t remember how the northern Swedish town of Skellefteå ended up in my inbox almost two years ago. I remember the first e-mail, though. “Change your life!” read the subject line.

“I don’t want to”, I thought, leaving it unopened. I did take note. Of course, it’s not every day an entire town slides into your DMs.

A month or so later I got another e-mail. “Change your life!” read the subject line, again. You could blame evolution, or my fearful monkey brain. I believe everyone is scared of change on some level. So I left it unread. Again.

When the next one arrived, I was having the kind of day that would make you scream for change, but alas, they switched up their messaging. “How would you like to live?” the subject line asked. A little vague for my taste. I wondered whether the grass could possibly be greener in what I can only assume is a frozen hellscape.

Personally, I like daylight and warm sun. I’m not trying to hit the innocent town of Skellefteå where it hurts; I’m just being realistic. I’m aware these things are in low supply above the arctic circle.

After a few months of unopened e-mails, however, I became suddenly aware that without even meaning to, I grew attached to this northern Swedish town I knew nothing about. I formed a picture in my mind of what Skellefteå is like from next to no information at all, having never actually properly read a single e-mail. This picture I painted for myself was nothing like a hellscape at all.

I imagined snow dusted streets and warm glowing street lights. In my mind’s eye I could see people walking down these streets without any rush and only a vague, sort of optional, purpose. I imagined the smell of tall pine trees, and the joy that the few warm days a year would bring.

They seem to want me there, since I’ve been receiving consistent e-mails for the past two years every couple of months or so. Of course, I don’t mean me personally, but maybe someone like me. Skellefteå’s welcoming nature doesn’t seem to come with conditions, either way, so maybe I would be just right.

Maybe someone would care I’m there. Like, the mayor, or something. Or the lady at the info desk. “Come as you are,” Skellefteå seems to say.

“It’s just not meant to be,” I think back at it, sadly. “But you’re a nice daydream,” I add, after a moment’s thought.

***

A half marathon that past me signed up for in a rare burst of self-confidence is no longer 9 months away. I have therefore been forced by my remaining half ounce of sense to start running again (again). I now have three months to go. Is this fine?* (*Unlikely.)

I do not enjoy running. I actively dislike it. You might be mystified, then, by my desire to complete a half-marathon, considering how much running it involves.

Let me unmystify this for you. Like many millennials around me, deep insecurity about my place in the world categorically prohibits me from feeling any sense of achievement from doing anything I actually enjoy.

One is only aloud to feel proud of things that require pain, sweat-blood-tears, every ounce of one’s energy, and inhuman willpower. If I’m not thinking every moment about how little I want to be doing this right now, then there’s no accomplishment in it. (Take a moment for a pensive sigh with me here if you need one.)

I did not enjoy the first and only half marathon I did back in 2016. In fact, the only thing that got me through it was daydreaming about never running again, out of principle, not even for the bus. This is what I told my mom about playing violin, too. I said I wanted to quit and she wouldn’t let me. I told her that once I graduated from music school, out of spite, I would never touch it again. It was a silly lie, of course.

After crossing the finish line I bent over, put my hands on my knees like an old man, and cried a little.

“Holy shit, that was a really fucking long way to run,” I thought. It felt weird to be proud of just running really far. You know, cars exist.

I was proud of myself anyway. It was something I didn’t want to do, but did, and there’s value in that, there just is. There has to be.

Still, the only conspiracy theory in this world that I believe in is that running, as an activity, is intrinsically (and probably by design) completely devoid of potential for enjoyment. That everyone who claims to like it is either processing some deep trauma that should really be getting addressed in therapy, or flat out lying.

I’m sorry if this is you. I don’t make the rules. Well, technically, I sort of did here, but. What are you going to do about it, really? Feel free to comment angrily, I still won’t believe you. We didn’t go through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to just be running from no threat at all. Unless, of course, it’s your own demons.

I personally am just a really evolved couch potato.

***

Jules spends more days at the office now, so I’ve been singing more. Mila doesn’t mind, though she does stomp around and break things while I’m distracted.

The following video is a one-time instalment, there’s unlikely to be any more public singing done here, so don’t unsubscribe. I just literally don’t have anywhere else to share it.

***

I wish I could tell you something really positive about not writing regularly. It’s been hurting my brain, like every thought being left unfinished. I wish I could tell you I’m well rested, and ready to resume the irregularly scheduled programming.

That I haven’t sunk into a meticulous and never-ending mental dissection of what in the world is so wrong with me. When so little in the world is about me, what does it even matter?

Well, turns out, it matters to me, and as far as the inside of my own head is concerned, that’s enough. This is a normal effect of winter carrying on doing the winter thing a little too long, I think. The voices are loud, and they all want to know why I can’t just be normal for once.

Why I can’t be poised, or contain my dumb loud laugh instead of throwing my head back and letting it out, or resist making jokes that don’t make sense to anyone else. Why I can’t be beautiful at all times, even though that’s just a load of bullshit. You either accept your own beauty or you don’t, but there’s no such thing as only being beautiful after three pm or a spa day or whatever. I’ve seen beautiful people, and they’re beautiful always. It rarely has anything to do with how much makeup they’re wearing or what weight they are.

I’ve been wondering whose voice has been telling me all these things about myself. All these lies about how people perceive me. Telling me I’m exhausting, and that I’ll never be able to change or achieve my goals, or stick to them.

And it’s my own voice. People think it’s probably parents or society or teen cosmo, or whatever. No, it’s me. It’s as much a part of me as my unpretty laugh, so trying to tell myself to practice some self-acceptance suddenly feels redundant. I can’t do that, because I need to reject this voice that is my own.

Skellefteå can love me as I am, and they don’t even know me. So maybe I can, too.

I am an evolved couch potato, and I do have some demons. So maybe running isn’t such a bad idea. I’ll do the damn half marathon, fine. I will definitely hate it, which will be reason enough to feel proud of myself.

We’ll take it from there, then. Sorry for going off about nothing, again.

Gotta go, spring is here.