It's all too loud

I had a thought today as I was walking Lucy and Penny on our 15 minute post-work walk route.  This was the thought that got stuck in my head on repeat: Life has been too loud lately.  And I mean that literally.  My life right now just seems to have too much noise in it.  From the traffic I can hear outside my open living room windows to the bass on my neighbor's music system that I hear far too loudly through my walls to the incessant non-stop talking of first graders in the springtime, it just seems like I haven't had a quiet moment in months.

I'm hyper aware of noises right now, which doesn't help.  Although Penny has adjusted by leaps and bounds to a life that includes much more outdoor time than I think she was used to (no more shakes on walks!  Unless it's raining of course--although that's getting better too!), the month or two I spent avoiding busy streets, buses, and anything close to Aurora Ave upped my sensitivity to all that noise.  While Penny has adjusted, I can't seem to get away from it anymore.

When I moved to Seattle from New York, I was amazed at how quiet Seattle was.  No sirens blaring at all hours, no cracked-out bums screaming on the street at 3 in the morning.  The silence here kept me awake at night.  But now I've recalibrated, and the noise has become grating again.

My girls.  Fantastically well-adjusted to the great outdoors.

So as I thought about the run I was about to go on--the run that I had thought about all day--I decided to do something daringly different.  I decided NOT to take my headphones.  This frightened me slightly because my headphones have always been my distraction on my solo runs.  They're my lifeline when I'm in pain.  My music is my source of emotion when the emotion I'm actually feeling isn't one I really want to face.  My audiobooks take my mind away from the movement of my feet and the steady rhythm of my breath.  Going for a run without these crutches pushed me out of my comfort zone.  But I was desperate for quiet, and the thought of throwing more sound directly into my ear canals had me cringing.  So I waved goodbye to my comfort zone.

There was another reason why this greatly anticipated run had me feeling slightly out of my comfort zone too.  I haven't run in 2 weeks (except for a run with the dogs at the animal shelter last Monday, but that doesn't count).  I took a self-imposed, potentially knee-healing two week break after my Team in Training coaching season officially came to an end.  Today was the day that I was officially allowing myself back into the running game.  Today was the day I would see if it was all worth it.

Once I returned from my walk with the girls, I strapped on my Garmin, laced up my running shoes, left my headphones in their drawer, and sat my phone on the table for a rest.  Then I stepped out the door with my fingers crossed behind my back.

After strolling for two blocks giving my Garmin the annoyed "comeonalready!" face, it connected to its satellites and we were off.  Let me lay out for you the thought process of what happened in the next mile:

"Yay, no knee pain!"
"Don't celebrate so soon, it's only the first couple blocks."
"Tighten your abs, push your hips forward."
"Use those glutes!  Run with your butt!"
"Man, those cars are loud."
"Oh, that was a pretty little bird chirp.  I wouldn't have heard that with headphones on."
"What is the name of that bird I hear so loudly from outside the zoo all the time?  Why can't I ever remember it's name?"
"Shoot, I think I forgot to make those copies for tomorrow."
"Glutes! Abs!"
"How's the knee?  Hmm, still feeling good I think.  At least it feels about the same as the other one right now."
"I need to remember to ask for more snacks from the parents at school tomorrow."
"What was it those two first graders were arguing about today?  Ugh, I need to talk to them in the morning."
"Push your hips forward!  Engage those glutes!"
"Could I be running on a louder street?  I don't think I could."
"The Sounders game on Saturday was fun."
"I wonder when the next one is I'm going to.  I should check my phone when I get home."
"OH MY GOD I'M RUNNING A MARATHON IN 12 WEEKS!"
"I wonder where I'm meeting my friend for dinner tomorrow night."
"This hill feels great, I feel like I'm flying."
"Stupid cyclist, get off the sidewalk.  There's a bike lane right there! Literally, RIGHT THERE!"
"Abs! Glutes!"
"Check in with the knee.  Yep, still feeling good."
"Sometimes I feel sad."
"But I'm not sad right now, what do I have to be sad about?"
"Oooh! Kids playing soccer games!  Scan the crowds, look for those first graders!"
"I wonder how far I'll make it today.  My breathing feels good."
"How fast am I going? NO! Don't look at your watch, idiot.  Just run how you feel."
"Tighten your butt!  What are your abs doing?"
"When will I ever find a boy who actually likes me?"
"The tag in the back of this shirt brushes the strap of my sports bra really loudly.  How have I never noticed that before?"
"I'm getting tired already."
"POSITIVE THOUGHTS ONLY! You're doing great.  This feels great."
"What am I going to write about in the blog tonight?  I hope I get inspired, it's been forever since I have."
"Is that...oh no, it just looked like her."
"Glutes!!  Abs!!"
"Those cars are SO LOUD."
"What should I make for dinner tonight?"

This endless stream of nonsense continued until I hit about mile two.  And then it hit me.  In fact, it punched me in the face.  And my mind, as it always does, went back to The Oatmeal who so eloquently said:

"And the buzzing road of the world is nothing compared to the noise inside my head. I'm an introspective person, and sometimes I think too much, about my job and about my life.  I feed an army of pointless, bantering demons."

YES.  This is where all that godawful noise has been coming from.  This is why I can't get away from it.  It's not the stupid cars or my headphones or my annoying neighbor.  It's the noise in my head that's so loud (that train of unconnected thoughts above plus all the more personal demons I omitted from publishing on the internet).  The Oatmeal, of course, explains how he quiets his demons:

"But when I run, the world grows quiet.  Demons are forgotten.  Krakens are slain.  And Blerches are silenced."

You know the Blerch.  The fat little cherub on your shoulder that urges you
to lounge on the couch and eat, eat, eat some more.

This used to be true for me.  There was once a time when running could silence all those demons for me.  Or at least provide the silence necessary for me to work against them and silence them myself.  But I haven't been running much lately.  And when I have, it all sounds pretty much like the random selection above, plus or minus a few things.

So for the second half of my run, I focused on silencing the demons and the krakens and the Blerches.  Generally, I focused on not feeling.  Just not feeling anything.  Until I realized that sometimes I run because it makes me feel.  Because there are certain feelings that I'm not very good at allowing myself to feel and when I run, I feel things like pain and discomfort and struggle--all those difficult feelings I like to ignore in my personal, non-work, non-running life.  And I realized that that is the exact opposite of what the Oatmeal likes about running.

And then I told myself to shut up again.

Just SHUT UP.

But I guess I'm not very good at that.  Because after struggling through a 4.5 mile run, trying not to feel anything and apparently feeling everything instead (except a pain in my knee--didn't feel that!!), I decided to come home and blog about it.  To delve even deeper into the noises in my head.

Which has all led me to the final big realization of the day.  It isn't running that keeps my voices quiet.  And it isn't writing that quiets them either (I have, in fact, been writing a ton lately despite the silence on the blog and while I'm happy with what's been spewing out, I wouldn't say it has promoted sanity).  It's this strange combination of the two that quiets the demons, krakens, and Blerches in my head.  This odd imbalanced equation where running plus writing equals sanity.

These two also, counter-intuitively, make my life just a little more sane.

With the amount of running and writing in my life both increasing on the near horizon, I'm growing hopeful that this "not-exactly-me" feeling I've had about myself the past few months will slowly disappear and the real me will return again.

But that's something I'll worry about later.  For now, after a good run and a solid stint of writing, I feel the world around me growing silent for the first time in way too long.

I'm going to go enjoy it.