Oh, when I first fell in love with Precious Things by Tori Amos, I was so angry.

It was a long time ago, and I would race through the neighbourhood with this song on my Walkman, on a tape I made off Little Earthquakes, and I would just run with the anger and the music fueling my run. It started long before then, as I was probably about fourteen or fifteen when I started, and I was angry at everyone and everything. When I wasn't angry, I was depressed, but I'd still be running.

I said that I used to run. I said that there was going to be a post about that. I think this is it.

I used to run and I used to think that I could run fast enough to outpace the anger that boiled and seethed under the surface, outpace the things about me that scared people. I never really figured out what those things were, and I'm still clueless. I still keep distant from people because of that. Until the last couple of years, every time I met someone for the first time, I would have a pair of sunglasses on. I had to hide my eyes, because one of my close friends flinched away from me when I looked at her. There was something about my eyes. I thought I could outrun their laughter.

They always laughed when I ran. They laughed when I ran and when I climbed, and when I did anything that I felt natural doing. I didn't have a thick skin then. I still don't. If I started running and they started laughing again (because I looked stupid or ridiculous running) it would still hurt about as much as when they started when I was ten.

I didn't expect this to start with the dark edge of the running to me. I expected the joy and the brightness and the sheer glee I got out of that. I didn't expect this entry to start with "Precious Things".

Because at the core, it was something I did for the joy of it. For the sheer pleasure. I would run until I couldn't anymore, then I'd throw my head back and let out an exhilarated laugh. I mean, even though I did that other stuff, and used running as a method of dealing with it, it was more than that. It was something I did because I loved how it made me feel.

I used to dance, too. Dance to my own rhythm, my own beat. At least, that's what my best friend in the entire fricking multiverse said once. I looked at him with great shock and surprise. I just had all this energy, and I'd run and I'd dance and I'd laugh. And he'd drive me crazy.

But I loved that too.

Running was like flying and the only thing more like running was falling in love, and when the two were combined, it was heady. Oh, gods, but it was heady.

I used to say that I didn't need any drugs like others in my class were doing. I had running, I had dancing, and that was a high that no chemical could induce.

Of course, I then got fucked up shortly after I left high school, and I stopped running, stopped dancing, and--

And I want it back. All of it (except the seething boiling anger and the depression). NOW. Dammit.