The Long Run

 I have seldom been in a big hurry in my life except when I am walking or, in my more youthful years, whenever I perceived I could lap someone while running. I have always been a "in the long run" kind of person. I am the person who thinks that things work out in the long run. I think that because we all are dead in the long run. Petty jealousies? No time for those when you're dead. Being jerked around in this world? Not anymore, when you're dead.

I have come to conclude that the long run is where you go on the road to death. Also, on the way to the long run, your memory gets fuzzy. It's hard to hate people forever if you can't remember them or the incident that sparked your hatred. Vision blurs, hearing goes, your teeth fall out, and so does your mind's eye. Those technicolor visions of love lost and venom incisions give way to a rosier-colored set of recollections where, mostly, things worked out.

I can honestly say that I look forward to the long run because the short run is full of exhausting sprints, the momentary furies that lead to road rage, the cursing of someone's fortune that exceeded your own, and the milieu of other odds and ends that get whatever is left of your goat. The long run is like well-marinated meat, still chewy, but much more satisfying.

I figure I have about 25 years to complete the long run. How I'll feel at the end of it, I can't fathom. I have a recollection of my high school days. For gym class, as proof of our physical fitness, we had to run a mile around a cinder track. I was in no kind of shape and I remember how very sick to my stomach I felt when eventually I got to the finish line. It is my fervent hope that isn't the way I feel at the end of my long run.