Inspiration: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

“But man is not made for defeat...A man can be destroyed but not defeated. ” 

I peeled off an old, rotten, moldy layer this weekend. I peeled off something that died long, long ago but I held onto for some reason. Maybe because it is what I was used to for so long. Maybe it was because I was afraid of something--I am not sure what. Or maybe it was because of what my mother told me in the beginning of the summer. 

Back then, I wanted to get rid of this thing. I wanted to rip it to shreds and burn the thing to ashes. I wanted to turn this beautiful thing into something disgusting--something that resembled what I felt at the time. I felt anger and hatred and I wanted to take that out on something beautiful--kind of like in "Fight Club" when he beats up the pretty boy. But my mom wouldn't let me. She said that things would change; that everything would go back to the way things were, and I would need it someday. 

So in my heart I believed her because they say "Mother always knows best" and I packed it away. I tucked it deep in a box with other useless things that I probably won at a carnival, and I forgot about it. And the weeks passed by, and then the months. And then I remembered about this thing, and I thought about how nothing went back to the way things were. They never will because they never do. I was holding onto something stupid for no reason at all. It was meaningless. 

So I wore it on a mud run. I wanted to enjoy slowly destroying this beautiful thing. As I ran the course and went through the obstacles wearing this thing, I realized how difficult it was. The course, the mud run itself, was a microscopic version of my life. I struggled while trying my best to succeed on this run but the thing kept weighing me down. I crawled through the mud and this thing clung onto me for dear life. I tried to climb over walls and this thing kept tripping me. I tried to run and it would scrape and chafe me. It made me uncomfortable.

That's what holding onto this thing felt like in my life. Even though it was tucked away somewhere in my parent's garage and forgotten, I knew I would be better off without it. If I got rid of it I knew my life would be better. And if I took it off during this race, I knew I would be faster and the course would be easier. But not everything can be that easy.

At the end of the race, we walked to the showers and I asked my friends to rip this thing off of me. I stood there under the cold water in my bathing suit and I saw the beautiful thing for what it was--just a pile of muddy fabric. Trash. Feeling the weight of that thing come off of me was one of the best feelings I have ever had because in that moment I realized that I did not have anger or hate in my heart. I held onto those things for the sake of comfort--it is what I knew, just like why I held onto this thing.

I left the race sore, bruised, and scraped. But most importantly I left knowing that I had survived. My body was destroyed but I still finished the race. Things were destroyed in my life and never went back to way they were, but I was not defeated. I realized that my mom was right--things did change and I did need the thing after all. I needed it to have my cathartic moment. I needed that thing more than I ever thought I would--more than what it was intended for.