I love running. I've been doing it basically my entire life and it has helped me. I remember going on antidepressants and that I stopped eating and sleeping before I gave up waking up at 6 am for summer cross country workouts. I wouldn't have made it if I wasn't running. It gave me a routine, and gave me time where I wasn't curled in the fetal position, sleep deprived and uninterested in food. The last year has been incredibly hard as well, but spending hours every day simply putting one foot in front of the other stopped me from falling apart internally. Which is why I'm worried now.

I hurt my knee, breaking an ironman streak stretching back to 7th grade track. I don't know how serious it is, but I haven't turned back from a long run because I hurt in awhile, and have no context for if this is bad. But my dad offhandedly saying "Maybe you'll have to get you meniscus cleaned out" and shivers went up my spine. Because if it's a serious meniscus problem then what? Surgery? A 20 year old struggling through knee problems because hospitals are already overcrowded with patients in a pandemic? I have said for almost a decade that running keeps me happy even when things are bad. I understand exercise isn't for everyone with depression but it's everything to me. I will fall apart. I've said that when I'm old and grey happiness will feel unsustainable. Joked that I'm accepting bets on if it'll be my knees or hips going out first. But now I won't joke. I can't.

I pray that my IT band is just sore. That it's Runners Knee. That the popping will go away. But there's so much of me that's preparing to investigate who I am without running. What I'm going to do to fill the time. How unfulfilled I'll be watching marathons go by. I'm afraid. Fingers crossed I can make myself get those steps again. I don't know what I'll do if I have to stop.