"Staying Alive"

Robin Gibbs, one of the three founding members of the 70's iconic disco/rock group The Bee Gees died this past week of liver problems or more likely the cause was "hard  living". He was younger than I am when he died but if the pictures in the paper are reasonably accurate, he looked a lot older than me even before he got sick. I'm not about bagging on him or any of the rockers of the past decades. I mention him only because of the song the Bee Gee's did in the 70's that was good then and is still good today. "Staying Alive, Staying Alive"

What are the factors to "staying alive"? All kinds of things must go right: good genetics, no major illnesses or accidents, good luck, a guardian angel on your shoulder never hurt either. Then there are the factors a person can control like: food, rest, relationships, and activity. I am speaking here today about activity. I know, I know there are plenty of people that sit on the porch drinking lemonade, swishing away flies and they live to an old age. I get it, it's different for different people. God bless those that can do very little and be happy. May the newspaper and the rocking chair be your life-long friends. It's not me though, not by 180 degrees.

I think I began running in 1975 as a way to ward off 2 things: the nervous breakdown I was going through and anxiety like you wouldn't believe. The nervous breakdown was caused by a bad childhood (won't go into that now), and triggered by the loss of a girlfriend in a car accident a few years before. A car accident that I should have been in. Mary wanted me to come to her place New year's Eve in Redondo Beach and after getting off work, I thought it too far to drive in a pretty thick fog in my little VW bug. So I begged off despite her asking me repeatedly to come up. So, she decided to go to her company party at General Telephone and was killed crossing Pacific Coast Highway right in front of her work. I felt guilty for the longest time. I was pissed off at everyone.  Had I gone up we wouldn't have gone out etc. Take that guilt and anger, add it to years of frustration, anger already built up, plus years of not eating right, smoking cigarettes and being a coffeeholic and well you can imagine what I was like in November of 1975. Hair turning white? That was the least of my problems then. 

So I began to run. My first run on the tiny Balboa Island (where I was living, if you want to call living in a cave like apartment living) was about 100 yards and I thought I was going to cough up my lungs. I didn't know anything about anything. Meaning stretching, proper shoes, nutrition, running clothes nothing. After one week I was up to 130 yards but had sore legs you couldn't believe. Slowly I began to ask questions, and got with it. When I ran I felt better, endorphin's kick in and I would get a sense of empowerment and peacefulness. I lived for the few minutes a day that I could run and not feel so sad, disoriented, lost, depressed. I also got into nutrition, stopped smoking and turned to herb teas. I began a long road in therapy,(5 years worth) going back and undoing every f'ing kink in the garden hose of my life. I had a lot of them and I had to undo them one painful unkinking at a time. I was prescribed Valium by my doctor but I never took even one. I left them sit in the bottle on my medicine cabinet shelf for a month. I looked at them everyday and debated in my mind about it everyday until one day I just opened up the bottle and poured them down the toilet. That was a vote for me learning to take care of me. Running became my Valium.


I never was a great runner. You would have won the lottery sooner than me become a really good runner. I did half-marathons and 10K's, fun runs and charity runs. As I got older, I noticed little by little, that I had less gas in the tank, and was getting less gas mileage, but I still needed to run as if to prove to myself that who I had become out of the mess of who I had been was still there. Therapists Jim and Terry did a good job of helping me see that what happened to Mary was not my fault but I always retained the sense that I had been self-centered and selfish by saying no to her, especially because she had said "Pleeease" several times and I still didn't go. I  promised myself I wouldn't be selfish and self-centered again and for the most part I never was. If a friend needed me I would be there, if a student needed a recommendation letter they would get it, if I was up to my eye balls in grading but a student wanted me to look at a paper for suggestions I would do it. I still will.

Disintegrating is painful, it's scary and there are moments when you aren't sure you will ever be back together. Take a guess how many times I thought I was crazy and going to stay that way?
Reintegrating is slow and there are set backs, but the goal is a new and improved you.
 Running is what helped me climb out of a deep deep hole and I still run today, well run and walk. I am grateful for still being able to get out there in the sun and do what I can. I still push myself. I recently did a 5 mile run/walk at Lake Miramar and felt tired but great when I got to my car. I finished my last half mile like I I always have since 1975 by singing "Staying Alive" uh uh uh uh Staying Aliiiiiiive"
 Staying Alive is not just a goofy disco song, it's a question.