my feet don't touch the ground

Though I do not often remember dreams, I know that I have many that fit into the same basic theme. I had such a dream this weekend, more than once. In the dream, I am running. I am not running from anything. I am not being chased. I am just running. And in the dream, when I am running, my legs are moving in perfect rhythm, and I feel no fatigue. I do not have to catch my breath. And often during the dream, I am running with such ease that, quite naturally, my stride gets paced such that I am actually leaping from one step to the next. Eventually, each leap is actually a bound, and I am taking flight. I can feel the sensation of soaring. It is not frightening. In fact, I feel a bit giddy.

In my waking life, I am a crap runner. Actually, let me rephrase- I am a crap jogger. I doubt what I do on a treadmill would be considered running by any true runner's standards. And in my waking life, I rather loathe running. Since I have allergies and lousy lung capacity (and also because I have no concept of how to establish and maintain a pace), I have to run indoors. And at most, I run 2.5 miles when I am at the gym. During those 2.5 miles, at least 2.3 miles are spent trying to talk myself out of stopping. The other 0.2 miles are spent walking.

But- when I finish running, when I descend from the treadmill with my legs feeling like rubber, when I splash off the sweat from my face, when I leave the humid air of the gym for the cool fog of the evening air, I do attain a strange sense of peace. It is good evidence of my stupidity that I cannot seem to hold on to this feeling, that I cannot seem to remember it. I spend the hour before I am supposed to head out to the gym inventing excuses to squirm out of it. And I am miserable for most of the run. Yet, every time, at the end, the tranquility washes over me. Every time, and still the cycle always proceeds in this manner.

Maybe the dream represents what I want to have, but do not. Maybe the dream represents what I think I can achieve, but actually can not. Maybe it has nothing to do with running whatsoever. To tell you the truth, I do not spend too much time thinking about this dream, because it is not at all jarring. It is an exuberant dream filled with potency and possibility that only exists in dreams. Maybe it is just my brain's way of coaxing myself into believing, contrary to the data stacking up against believing.

Or maybe this is just what happens when you feel a little ill, and make really foolish decisions, like taking a dose of NyQuil after three vodka tonics. Yeah, apparently I lose my scientific reasoning abilities at 1:30 in the morning on the weekend. It has been over 24 hours, and I still feel groggy and disoriented- which is why I will put off gushing about Chai's bachelorette extravaganza until tomorrow.