I Must Love Suffering
Learning to love yourself by accomplishing hard things
Salty sweat bleeds from every pore in my body, soaking into my faded tank-top. Washed so many times, its fabric is thin and singed with a white-worn wear you only get from a hundred uses. My perspiration dyes the neckline a darker shade, my favorite necklace to don. My shorts are hiked up high on my hips, tied tight so every aggressive step doesn’t send them to my ankles. A long stretch of sidewalk spans out before me, as I maintain a generous pace, one step after another, landing lightly on the balls of my feet.
Living for the span of time when both my heels and toes are hovering above the ground, the main difference from a walk to a run. One foot leaves the earth, a silent micro-second follows, the other foot plants and repeats. My speed is even keeled, playing back the story of the tortoise and the hare a thousand times, convinced in my ability to maintain. Another step, another step.
More sweat leaks from my skin, dripping in my own humanity, flooding my ear pockets and underwear alike. I’m steaming myself up, generating a sauna of my own. A glace downward, I entertain the passing cracks in the concrete sidewalk. One after another they zip under my feet, a thousand little starting lines, not one of them a finisher. Every cement divot dictating a new chance for me to reorient my body, improve my pacing, hold my chin up a slight bit higher, confident in my forward stare.
My eyebrows form a pointed scowl, scorched as I really start to piss myself off. There’s nothing to be angry about, not one thing wrong in my scene. The pseudo-madness is welcome, a fruitful actor in my masochistic production. It drives me, floors the gas through the bottom of my soul. I welcome the suffering — I want it, need it, I’m breathing hard for it. I’m excreting all my inner liquids for it, body in a constant state of weeping its bitch out. Get it all out, every drop.
I quicken my jaunt, sucking in swathes of oxygen deep into my ventilated lungs. My vision narrows, tunneling forward with a precise arrow-like accuracy. Sharp tingles race up my spine, flecking across my shoulders and down the lengths of my arms. I claw my fingers like an undead zombie bursting their hand through the loosened soil of the earth. Energy radiates through my core, thundering down my flexing thighs and calves, basing every step in palpable power. There it is — I’m high as hell now, eyes wide and wild.
The spanning sidewalk before me angles to the right, climbing a significant grade in only fifty yards. My favorite part — the real test of my proliferated endurance. Just before taking the charge, I pass under an electric school sign, relaying common information for drivers, walkers, and runners alike. Lights flicker the screen, Home of the Bruins — a big brown grizzly bear snarling in the background. The lights flicker again, 4:47PM | July 14th, 2021. The lights flicker one last time, 108 degrees.
My scowl melts into audible laughter — I quicken my pace once again, now angling up the rising hill. My favorite part. I must hate myself. Subjected to this sweltering ordeal, body wailing in perceived torment. I crest the hill, punching the left side of my gut and grunting an animalistic growl. I don’t slow, refusing to let any of that inner weeping bitch have a say over my practice. I pull off the tank-top, maintaining my gait, and stuff it half-way down the backside of my shorts. I little sopping tail wagging in the wind behind me.
I shake my head in disbelief — no way it’s a hundred-and-eight out here. Feels like less. The sheath of perspirant encasing my body begs to differ. I’m nearing the end of the expedition, taking a page from the hare’s book and turning my jog into a dedicated sprint. The final leg of my self-subjected agony. The concrete crevice signaling my finish line disappears under me, and I ease into a recovery shuffle, walking my way toward the front door of my house.
My heart beats throughout my entire body — I can hear it in my skull, feel it in my legs. I pause before I head inside, where the air is so conditioned it’ll freeze my caking sweat, forming a snakeskin to be shed by a shower. I pause, breathing in the sunbaked atmosphere. Everything is crystal, clear and vibrant, saturated in emerald-green shades, painted under a cyan sky.
I see the outlines of growing muscle tissue, lined around my legs, my core, my chest, and arms. I probably look like a self-worshipping goon, standing on my front porch, admiring my torture. I don’t care. I feel better than I’ve ever felt, am better than I’ve ever been. I’m not worshipping the growth of my exerted muscles. I’m obsessing over my three-mile, one-hundred-and-eight degree self-induced suffering. I did it. I did it yesterday, and the day before, and the month before, and the month before that. And you can bet that tomorrow I’ll do it again — I love myself for it.
