Running shoes

I'm a runner. I left a university just after the first years' camp because it reminded me of High school, too Afrikaans. I left studying full time two years into my degree because I was no different from a part time student, and I hated living in a commune. I quit my honors degree because I felt my lecturer refused to understand me when I struggled with an assignment.

I'm a runner. If something isn't working for me, I walk away. I don't do well with persevering, I hate and avoid conflict. If you want to fight with me you're going to fight alone, I prefer simply walking away, sometimes with no explanations even, because I stink at that too, explaining how I feel. But I'm learning in the most painful way that adulting isn't for runners. Adulting sits you down and grounds your itching feet, it tells you to get over your emotions and face a new day, it tells you about things you need to pay and a job you're supposed to do no matter how you feel about it or the people you do it with. Adulting is a heartless beast.

Talking to my friend we agreed that society lied to us, they sold us dreams without showing us the price tags. As children we dressed up like adults when none was watching, copied and mimicked adult tendencies as often as we could. I remember this one time me and my neighbor-friends went around picking up stompies, we were about ten years of age. When we felt we had enough, we stole a box of matches and tried smoking them. I've never coughed so hard in my life.

You go through High School pushing to get your marks to be good enough to get you into a university. Once in, you work hard to finish your course so you can get a good job, move into an apartment, buy a nice starter car and so on and so on. Nobody tells you how little pay you'll get with your first job, how your salary will go away to the tax man, medical aid, pension fund and whatever is left of it, rent (you'll be lucky if it includes electricity) and the car installment. Oh yes and groceries, you still eat as an adult, and you buy your own toiletries too, soap actually runs out hey. Get the picture? Far from the one society paints huh?

Then there's us, the leaches, the adult children living at home, lol. Everyone thinks it's bliss, no rent or electricity bill, you help out with the groceries where you can and when you can't, they'll understand. But every coin has two sides. The flip-side: You have to report your every move, and having had the sweet taste of independency in college, you feel like hitting your head against the wall each time they ask you where you're going. You have to deal with your siblings, you can't ignore them everyday (I've tried it, failed) and you obviously can't get rid of them without ending up in jail (haha). I love my sisters though, deep down inside beneath all this frustration, lol. And you have to deal with your parents, again. That needs no further elaboration except that they are grumpier and more stubborn than they were last time you encountered them in your teen years.

So you get sucked in by the activities of the adult life and realize you have to throw your running shoes out and face the music. Some days you really feel you're getting better at it, then one day you're up at night after a long day asking yourself what on earth  you are doing, who are you and why your bestie isn't living next door.

We all run in some way or the other, whether it's running away from things like me, or running into things carelessly or running to things and never really exploring the stage we're in. It's hard I wont lie but it must be done. So get your pumps (or loafers) out and let's walk through this life thing together.

(sorry there are no verses in this post, lol, but you can read about Jacob, he was a runner but at some point had to deal with all the things he was running from, his past and his very self).