I had a few miles to think about it, what resonated about the Fourth of July for me? How did the word Independence spark my soul? What about my freedom can I hold to be true? Because I parked my car in the lot alone. I walked through the patriotic compression socks and American flag running shorts alone.  Because I said my name, picked up my bib, and poked myself with safety pins alone.  And I was okay. My heart stayed beating in my chest and not in my throat or outside my body.  The sweat I felt was from anticipation not the fear that I had no right to be taking up the space beneath me. And I could see the faces around me and connect in our humanity not cringe in my own.

A few years ago I had parked in the same lot. I don’t know how I drove or what happened between waking up and lacing up my shoes.  But I got there.  Coaxed by friends who had witnessed me at my most fearful.  Knowing they would be there didn’t extinguish the fire in my, but it contained it.  I found them in the parking lot and walked glued to their side to the registration table.  I watched them for the cues on what to do and when.  I was there for them because there was nothing in me worth running for.

A few years later, I am here.  Running these six miles again.  Feeling. Sensing. Breathing. Beating.  And though the same friends are at my side, I ran alone. I can stand independent of all I believed held me securely.  My marriage. My addictions.  My medications.  My home.  Because everything I clung to never really held me.  I didn’t realize until I let go that everything I needed was right here, inside the chest that holds my beating heart.  I am independent, and I am free.