Running away or running towards?

I love running. In all honesty it’s more like jogging, but I love the word running so much that I use it as the one and only description for my sportive activity. Someone told me once that I am a runner, running away from my problems. Although it may seem so from the outset, I believe the opposite to be true. Or perhaps that is what it used to be. But set aside the more metaphoric description of the word, I am indeed a runner – an urban runner. I’ve been running now regularly since I was in my teens, and I probably won’t stop until my knees cave in.

It started around the time I was 15, in a bid to shape up and loose the puppy fat. It soon became an obsession, as all my other objects of desire, and I was out running almost every evening. In the summer I would time it with the sunset running along the beach and a park that was leading towards the harbour. It was in the days before portable CD players, so I would bring my Walkman with full supply of ambient music from the latest recording of the MTV Chill Out zone. It was the closest I felt to being away from Sweden. On the other side of the shore, the lights of Copenhagen were sparkling, and in my mind I would be the girl with the Parisian apartment downtown Copenhagen. I would lead a life of adventure and luxury, and at the same time explore the darker side of life. Perhaps I was influenced by the re-runs of Emanuelle, or the just released Basic Instinct. Whatever may be the truth, in my mind I was nothing short of a femme fatale.

Yes, those were the images I would conjure up in my mind as I went running. I knew one day Sweden would be too small for me. It would hamper my growth, wanting to mould me into something I could never be. So I longed, for Copenhagen, for Amsterdam, for freedom.

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Although with numerous illusions crushed, I still believe we can achieve anything we set our minds to. It’s all in your mind, ready to be unlocked. If you don’t believe it will never happen. Sometime, in rare occasions, someone can become a catalyst for change. But even so it’s all down to you. Today, when I was running I felt the same. The same as I felt some 17 years ago. Full of energy and freedom. Nothing could stop me, and I could run and run until my shoes would become thread bare, and the soles of my feet would start to bleed. And even so I would go on, and on until I found what I was looking for. Until I found you. Because you are out there, somewhere, I know. I will never stop looking…