Lauren Andrews

A letter to my 13-year-old self

By InnerVoice

October 31^st, 2018

Lauren,

You are celebrating your 13th birthday on a rainy Vancouver day in November, 2001. You are playing in your favourite soccer tournament, the Remembrance Day tournament: seven-a-side games held on full fields, which means even more running than usual.

You can’t understand why many of your teammates dread running. For you, it is one of the few states of being (along with playing piano) where you feel most protected, yet the freest. It isn’t about paces or mileage right now, it’s about the way you feel while running. You have no idea what the Boston Marathon is, and your parents aren’t really runners, but you find ways to run. You run through the woods at your summer cottage, run laps around the soccer field, and run ahead of your family on hikes.

Running provides solace in your little world.

It’s not that things are starting to happen beyond your control - they always were - it’s that you are becoming aware of the loss of control.

Covered in grass stains, you will return home to experience your first period. You will feel ashamed and embarrassed of yourself for that, and for much more: for feeling uncomfortable navigating the cliques at school, for wishing you were more interested in boys, for not breaking down into tears on the day of 9/11, for always feeling like the last person to realize a certain brand was in or out of style, for absolutely loving math and science class, for genuinely trying your best at team practices, for being afraid to phone a stranger, for getting acne, for being taller than the boys, for being ungraceful, for being a fast runner, for loving Beethoven and Chopin more than Ashanti and Nelly.

No one told you to feel ashamed of who you are, but deep down you have started to feel that way anyway.

It saddens me to tell you that the shame creeping in at 13 will be all you know seven years later. At age 20, your entire existence will become a cycle between shame and escape. You will look at yourself in the mirror with disgust and hatred. You will barely be able to walk, let alone run. Every day, you will know how privileged and loved you were, how you had every chance in the world, and yet be unable to focus on anything else than satisfying your addiction. There is nothing I can say or do to prevent what will unfold – otherwise I know Mom and Dad would have. Trust me, they will try and almost lose themselves, too, out of desperation.

You won’t believe me now, but in eight years, on July 7, 2009, you will find yourself intervened on by the police, and your parents will have you taken to rehab.

You will be told, “you’re lucky to be alive,” then dread being alive because you don’t know how to live.

In December, 2009, you will go on the first outdoor run of the rest of your life. It will be pouring rain and, as you can’t afford the newest gear, you will be wearing old run clothes from the mid 2000s. You find an old Timex with the strap broken off, so you put it in your pocket. You are a university dropout, single for “at least one year,” and working in the lingerie department at a Sears in a mid-sized town on Vancouver Island. This first run is everything they say not to do: in the dark, in the rain, alone, wearing all cotton (probably an old Sun Run t-shirt), on an unplanned hilly route that ends up taking you almost two hours to complete.

It is during this run that you will feel unchained joy for the first time since your early teens.

The BQs, the wins, the failures, the injuries, the training, the run crews; that will all come later.

The return to university, proving to yourself that you can win those scholarships, graduating as valedictorian, travel, marriage, career moves, buying your first home, starting a business, thinking about starting a family; that will all come later.

Lauren, you are about to become lost for a long time. One day, with the help of many loving people, you will recover your spirit that you robbed yourself of.

To do this will be to experience a joy you do not yet understand.

To feel joy from running, and from life, is already the greatest prize you will ever win in your running career. It's your own golden wreath and it's there waiting for you when you are ready.

Footnotes

Words by Lauren Andrews, Photos by Jody Bailey (@run_photographs), Edited by Cody Royle, Published by Travis McKenzie, Copyright NTSQ Sports Group Inc.

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FootNotes

Words by Lauren Andrews, Photos by Jody Bailey (@run_photographs), Edited by Cody Royle, Published by Travis McKenzie, Copyright NTSQ Sports Group Inc.