A Human Experience

“I don’t need you to understand me. I just need you to believe that I’m having a human experience…Just believe I’m a person, and I’m going through it.”

-Daphne Dorman

These words have been echoing in my head since I got off the phone with my triathlon coach Thursday evening. Yeah, I know, I have a triathlon coach…some bougie shit, right? Try to suspend your judgment for a hot minute, though. The words above were uttered by the late Daphne Dorman, a trans woman. She shouted them at comedian Dave Chappelle in response to his saying that he didn’t understand her. This is at least how he tells the story in his recent Netflix special, The Closer. Now, I didn’t call my coach on Thursday to try to explain to her that I’m a trans woman (nor am I writing to share such news with you; I’m still just as boringly cisgendered as ever). Instead, I called her to let her know why I haven’t been performing as well as I usually do in my workouts, and why I’ve been writing such grim workout reflections as of late. I explained to her how I feel like I’m running with an extra 4000 lbs of emotional baggage evenly distributed between my chest, shoulders, and gut. I told her about how I feel so heavy and sad some days that it feels just as hard to keep my body propelled in forward motion during my run workouts as it does to keep it from being pulled to the concrete. I told her about how the hardest part of preparing for half Ironman event in which I competed this past August was dealing with the guilt I felt passing the drug addicts and homeless people on the streets of Atlantic City and knowing that I was not there to “help” them, but to indulge my own desires to complete in such an utterly self-indulgent event. We talked through these points and more, and, at the end of the call, she said something to the effect of, “Well, great, so we’ve solved nothing,” with a laugh. I laughed, too, and didn’t even think to respond in the moment. But, like I said, Daphne’s words have been ringing in my head ever since that call.

I sometimes refer to myself as a “Type A person in recovery”. I’ve spent a good portion of my life believing that the next achievement would be the one that would finally make me happy, the one that would finally bring me peace. My achievements have come in a number of forms including, but not limited to, moving to foreign countries and adapting well-enough to complete “missions” in these new environments, receiving good grades for academic coursework, making money in markets, or simply running faster today than I did the day before. All of these things do bring me some happiness — fleeting as it may be — or at least a bit of a dopamine rush, but it doesn’t last. My success in these tasks has yet to foster a sustainable peace within me.

The one thing that does bring me a bit of peace, though, is the feeling I get after a long run or bike ride. I remember once reading that the most Zen-like state that most of us feel on a daily basis is that feeling of crashing onto a couch after a long day of work that has sucked the energy out of us. It’s in this moment that we no longer have the energy to overthink things, and we finally surrender; we let go and vibe out. These days, for me, this feeling of surrender often comes after long runs or bike rides, or sometimes a combination of both. Sometimes, I even experience this (almost) thoughtless state of Zen during these runs or bike rides. Really great stuff. I have been happy to have found this outlet, as I’ve been overdue for some time out of mind.

I was raised to believe that my ability to use and develop my mind was the most important thing in life, and for so much of my life, I have been handsomely rewarded for my cognitive abilities. The dividends of having a pretty good brain have come in the form of awards, scholarships, acceptance to prestigious schools, yada yada yada, and sometimes it came in the form of an outward expression of love from my mother. I was conditioned to believe I could think or analyze my way through or out of anything. And I can’t complain; by certain metrics, my mind has served me well. However, by others, not so much. My ability to (hyper)rationalize anything instead of just admitting that something doesn’t feel right has also ravaged me to the point of psychiatric hospitalization on more than one occasion.

And, so this is where endurance training came in. I decided about two years ago that it was time to focus on a different dimension of my physical being, my body. No more mind time.

I began to train for long races. I got inspired to start doing this because I read a book about a guy who did the same; he needed to stop paying his mind so much, well, mind, too, and training for endurance races seemed to do wonders for him. So, I figured if I did the same, I’d be on my way. Around the same time, I began to watch documentaries about endurance athletes, and tears would stream down my face as I’d watch these athletes come right to the verge of giving up only then to decide not to. The same tears stream down my face when I run by a fellow runner who looks a bit overweight — or like they are physically struggling more than the average jogger — but continues to trudge on anyway. Sometimes, I just want to stop and tell these people that I can see them, and that I’m so proud of them. I want to cheer them on. And maybe that’s just a projection. Maybe it’s me who wants to be seen. Or maybe these people are taking the steps that I wish my dad had taken before he let his illnesses get the best of him. Hard to tell.

Whatever it has been that has brought me to feel the way I do about training, it has served me. For this reason, I don’t feel a need to explain why I do it. I don’t owe anyone an explanation for indulging in such “selfish” activities, though, sometimes my mind tells me that I do. Am I running away from something? Most likely. Am I running toward something? Also, most likely. Am I engaging in a form of (healthy) escapism? Sure am. The world is scary as shit, and we all need a buffer from it at times. I once read that Bob Marley used to smoke weed because it gave him that much needed space between himself and the cruel world. If Bob could give himself a break, why can’t I? However, since I no longer use any substances to numb my pain (including psychiatric drugs), training has become my way of processing (and some days escaping) the pain.

But c’mon, Frank? Where does all of this pain you talk about come from? You’re a straight white middle-class able-bodied American male. What could possibly be so bad? Good question. I ask myself this almost every day. All I know is that since as far back as I can remember, the world has felt as if it weighed a million fucking pounds — and that all that weight had been placed squarely on my shoulders. Very little has ever made the world feel as though it has weighed less. Why have I always felt a need to take on the weight of it? I don’t know. The answer might lie somewhere between some cold hard statistics on poverty and my own narcissistic savior complex, my belief that I’m the one that has to make everything better. Anyway, over the course of the last two years, going for long runs or bike rides has helped me to feel a bit more free of this weight, and it has even interrupted some of the self-destructive thought loops that I fall into at times. I actually began to love how much less I was thinking in general so much so that I hired a coach to create my workouts for me, because I didn’t even want to think about doing that anymore. (But don’t worry, I rationalized paying for a coach. I assured myself that I deserved it since I wasn’t spending money on things like alcohol instead of just accepting that it felt okay to want to have a coach.) I’d figured it out, right? Maybe for a little while.

Over the course of the past two weeks, the things that I fear and dread the most in life have not only found a foothold in my waking thoughts, but also in my dreams. Worse than that, though, they’ve elbowed their way into my workouts. Whereas I thought I’d made a deal with my body to simply feel the pain that comes with endurance training (during the actual training) in exchange for the pain that comes with overthinking, I’ve learned lately the universe has torn up that contract, or at least made it null and void for the time being. Why? Who knows? Oddly enough, therein lies the lesson. I don’t know why, and I don’t even want to think about it.

But I do have to learn to accept it, which isn’t easy since most current waking moments feel like a cross between being at my own funeral and giving birth (metaphorically speaking, of course; again, still a dude). I knew in my gut I would come to this crossroads eventually. I knew that the pain would find a way to surface. I’ve actually wanted this to happen. I knew that it needed to happen at some point for me to move forward with my life. Plus, you can only listen to so many Eckhart Tolle lectures and read so many Martha Beck-type books before the messages like “be still”, “surrender”, and “let go” actually sink in and take effect. I know there’s no way to think my way out of this; no analysis will save me. This time, I have to feel my way through it.

That sounds romantic, right? I should take some solace in the fact that the likes of David Goggins (the Rocky Balboa of endurance sports) would be proud of me. If only it felt that way. Instead, I feel like I’m just about ready to die, as I can’t picture carrying on in this sort of pain. And here’s the kicker…I get to run a marathon in my hometown, New York City, in one week while hosting this tornado of shit festival happening within my body.

So, in the words of Axl Rose (the Rocky Balboa of rock): Where do we go now? Well, we start by simply accepting what is. In doing so, I decided to write this piece before my big race instead of writing a reflection piece on it afterwards. I’ve written this as a means to say out loud that I finally accept the pain that I am in; in fact, I’m here for it. I’m going to run through it, not away from it. I’ve also had to reframe how I will approach the race; I’ve decided that I’m not heading out to accomplish anything on Nov. 7, the day of the race. Instead, I’m heading out to be a part of something. I’m going to go join the 30,000 other runners (and however many spectators) in a human experience, and I’m going to embrace it no matter what it feels like. So, if you see me out there with some of those aforementioned tears streaming down my face, know I’m okay; I’m just letting a little light in. Or maybe I pulled my hamstring. You never really know.

And, so, with all of that said, I see now why Daphne’s words having been ringing in my head. If I could go back to the phone call with my coach the other night, I would respond to her final comment, the one about how we hadn’t solved anything, with the following: “Nothing needs to be solved. Nothing needs to be analyzed. And nothing needs to be understood. I just need you to believe I’m a person, and I’m going through it.” Luckily, I get that feeling that she and so many other people in my corner already do.