We return to the places where we feel cared for. Places where we feel safe. Where we can be ourselves.

Exactly ten years ago I met a collection of people here in northern Virginia. Our intersection began at Greenberry Coffee, the spot where 5AM Fun Runs were held by a local running store. Those mornings were notable for humidity and a run/walk back up Wilson Boulevard that never ceased to suck. While we always ran in near-darkness and soon scattered to make our day jobs, somehow those hard-to-decipher figures bouncing across Memorial Bridge became familiar to me. It wasn’t long before I was invited to join them and experience all kinds of activities across the National Capital Region. I remember feeling so excited and relieved to have found a group of friends in a new city.

“You ladies really have some amazing synergy.”

 This was a comment made yesterday from a sales rep manning the changing room of a favorite athletic apparel store. He said it after observing three of us former Fun Runners interacting with each other. We had been bantering and giving honest but kind judgment to each other as we made multiple trips to the stalls. “You guys really care for each other,” he continued, “In the way you talk—you help each other.”

After he said this we kind of half-shrugged and whole-smiled. We knew what he meant—even if he didn’t grasp the significance of his words. This Lycra-filled moment was a microcosm of a larger reason for which we were back together again on short notice. In just a few hours, a few hundred yards down the road from where we first met—and not far from Greenberry—we’d be a part of a special reunion. 

“It was like a bolt of lightning.”

This was the explanation for how our group came together. It was one of those events that you could never engineer with a high-tech algorithm. Indeed, as soon as I moved to Rosslyn, I was told by an old college friend that the DC area was a hard place to be: “Everyone here is either transient or hiding from someone or something,” she said. In some ways she was right—but this would not be the case for me. Much like experiencing a fender bender on I-395 or suddenly being diagnosed with a terminal illness, my social fabric was quickly stitched together through running. 

In arriving here this weekend, I flew in from London for a fast-clipped two and a half days. Misfortune ensured that I possessed limited personal electronic devices—but I had the use of a friend’s car. I needed to run errands while stateside, and traveling these roads that felt like spending time with old friends. But still, without Google to back me up, I did feel a bit tentative about making my way around again. Northern Virginia can be confusing, and my brain’s British Operating System had pushed this network of maps out of my short-term memory a few years ago. No matter—I would go anyway. I knew that I could allow for muscle memory to take over when self-doubt inevitably shouldered in. 

Ten years ago in Arlington was when I first learned how to trust myself and develop those muscle memories. I regained this confidence because of the support structure that sprouted up around me with those newly-made friends. In driving now this weekend, I reflected on this as I passed so many familiar places. I didn’t need a smartphone to act as a magic feather. I had the memories.  This realization felt incredibly validating—but at the same time it was of course bittersweet. Bittersweet because I wasn’t back in DC just to go shopping or head out for a run. 

In merging onto Route 110, tears welled up as I passed the Iwo Jima Memorial. This road skirts a part of our 5AM Fun Run pathway. And now in passing the perimeter of Arlington Cemetery, I experienced a complete score of joy and sadness. Another running friend of ours is interred here, she having passed following a brave battle with breast cancer. But I had to drive on, mindful of making my appointment in Pentagon City. While choked up, my intellectual brain kept reminding me that this was just a part of life: in processing what life throws at you, the reflexive response from your heart proves that you are indeed alive. And human. In a twisted sort of way, it certifies that you’re living in the best possible way: courageously.

“…a knack for bringing us ‘misfits’ together.”

Returning to the story of the shopping session, the three of us soon left to ensure we had time to prepare for Saturday evening. Here we would gather again on Wilson Boulevard—but this time not to run. Instead we’d join a larger collective in the back of an Irish pub that to me would resemble an Irish wake. A Celebration of Life, they called it. Celebrating someone who will no longer be heading up Fun Runs, but still, very much with us. A wooded box on the bar surrounded by images and words replete with remembrance and laughter. Joy and sadness. Somebody get me a drink, because this is really hard.

I can’t write much more about last night. I say this because if you weren’t there—or if you weren’t a part of this community—then you wouldn’t understand the nuances that were laced throughout. I’m also terrified that I wouldn’t do the thing justice by writing about it. But even as I refrain from testifying about Saturday night, I would offer that anyone reading this already has some empathy for those of us grieving. Each of us holds close moments that honor certain people and places. People who suddenly strolled into an otherwise dull life and made it remarkable. These ultimately serve as the best sort of counterpoint when everything else seems to be going wrong. If you can think of such a moment, if you have people in your life who make you feel this way, then you too are incredibly lucky. And you understand a bit of what I’ve been trying to talk about. 

As I write this it is now early on Sunday morning at Dulles Airport. I’m on a plane back to my current life and we’re just finishing up our taxi to the runway. It is a sunny sky with only the highest of wispy clouds scattered overhead. It’s the kind of summer morning where, at this 8 o’clock hour, we’d have already finished up our run and would either be heading to get breakfast or instead be redirected to complete personal errands. As time wore on for us, it would often be a case of the latter. Life gets really busy, and inevitably we are forced to press on and leave precious moments like these in a certain time and place. It’s hard to keep lighting contained in a bottle.

“I’m headed to the airport too…not sure who’s been cutting all these onions in my house.”

As we turn on to the active runway, I’m still doing that adult crying thing where I let myself feel the pain and sadness, but then push it down just before the tears spill over and make me look like a nut aboard this full-capacity aircraft. We’re accelerating now for takeoff. I will miss my departed friend very much—just as I always miss everyone who forms the circles of support that keep propelling me through this bewildering life. But even in my sadness, I know there is a more substantial joy residing just beneath this process of grief. It is in my head and my heart, and it makes me smile every time I conjure up a voice I know I will never hear again. Hers remains as vivid as this sunny day. 

For all of the support and laughter that I’ve experienced, I know that I must let this particular moment go. It’s because I know that can’t ask for much more in having been granted so many remarkable experiences. They assure me that life is being lived fiercely—but also with kindness and without apology. The world below me is now quickly shrinking as the plane gains altitude. Shrinking and soon to be behind me—but it’s still one that I will always return to because I know that it will never disappear. I take the support of everyone I love along with me, wherever I go from this day forward. And whenever I can go back—I know that I always will. Because in places like these, I feel cared for and protected. And my sincere hope is that I reflect those sentiments right back each time we’re recalled to the pub or to the streets at 5AM.