A morning in the van

The sun peeked over the tops of the trees, it’s rays lightly dusting the canopy, giving rise to a fuzzy outline of scrub. Our eyes squinting as the light tauntingly faded in and out before fully exposing the day a few minutes later.

We stood in silence clinging to trees, having jogged the warm up through the dewy grass, we were now vigorously swinging our legs.

I distinctly remember grasping at that damned roll encompassing my torso - stupid and false I knew it. It’s only skin, Hannah. Irrational, I told myself.

I thrust my leg up higher in front of me and felt the familiar pull in my hamstring, reminding me of my ballet days and all those grand battements. I continued to consciously pinch at the puckered skin around my stomach. I was screaming for help and in some weird way I wanted someone to notice, but I also didn’t because then the secret would be out, I would no longer hold the control.

We stood huddled in a circle, me with my arms wrapped around my shoulder blades in a tense embrace. The work out was 2 km reps with surges …but not for me today.

Those words: “Hannah please get in the van.”

In that moment, I knew.

She knew.

Everything slowed down, my body froze, I trembled with the barrage of thoughts hitting my mind.

They knew.I could feel their gaze piercing my weakened skin from behind. Some with sympathy, others envy, and others scornful, with misinformed i-told-you-so glares.

I trudged to the van, my arm shaking as I reached to open the door. How could I look at my coach and tell her of this demon within, I couldn’t even explain it to myself, I knew it was stupid and wrong, but I couldn’t stop it.

They jogged off. I held my gaze intensely focused on that faraway tree-line breaking the hardened earth and pastel sky. A tear sat poised in the corner of my eye ready to roll with the slightest of movements.

How could this picture perfect morning suddenly be so far from perfect?

My stubborn body was held paralyzed, not willing to expose the emotion or pain that bubbled within.

“What’s going on Hannah?”

But the slightly rhetorical tone told me she already knew it all.

A single tear was already sliding down my jawline.

“Last night…,” her voice trailed off

“I know what happened”

My breathing became jagged, I couldn’t take it, desperation set in, my life was crashing to the ground, every aspect of this carefully pieced together mosaic was now smashing to a million tiny shards before me.

She lent for my hand, but I moved away, I couldn’t do it. How could I allow her to comfort me, she was about to take it all away.

Everything away!

I tried to rationalize,“but if I promise to get it sorted, can I still race this weekend? I can race, can’t I? Please...? I HAVE to race. I HAVE to.”

My body heaving with the effort it took to not completely cry.

I wanted to accept her compassion, I really did, I loved Coach more than she will ever know, and part of me was relieved this burden was finally not my own to battle. But at that moment I couldn’t not hate her so profusely for exposing my own monsters to me. Why?

I was suffocating sitting in the van, nowhere to let my emotions out, mascara dribbling down my face like some of the inner darkness spilling over. Every second seemed to smother me as I realized, unlike other problems, with time, this would not immediately get better, nor would a clear solution offer itself. This was the first problem I felt I had ever encountered that I couldn’t immediately solve by simply working hard (or what at the time I considered hard work to be).

“Please, can I go for a run to clear my head, a walk, please something!?”

“a walk ....and only where I can see you” ….

This sentence broke me.

My coach whom I adored, whom I did everything to please, whom I only ever wanted to be the best athlete I could be for, didn’t trust me anymore, didn’t trust me at all. I felt like every aspect of recognition I had ever gained from her was lost and I was petrified I would never regain it.

I climbed out of the van and I saw my reflection in the side window. My body again jaunting with self-hate and realization as I grieved for the girl I had once been, as I grieved for the runner I now thought was lost. Who was this creature I had become? I was nothing but a shell of a person. My distinct thought was YOU.

You and only you did this to yourself… why?

I walked to the bleachers beside the baseball field and watched the others run strides as tears poured silently down my face. My broken body rocking in my arms.

How god had it come to this?

By now the sun had risen and it seemed just another crisp Fall day to every other unassuming creature in the park. But not for me, my day and world were certainly at a standstill.

I walked to coach, having regained some composure, all I could think of was the immediate race. How could I race? I had to race to prove my worth.

“Please coach, I must race, I’ll do anything …”

A ramble of sentences flowed from my mouth, empty promises of seeing a psychologist, the nutritionist appointments I’d make if only she’d let me race. I would have sold my soul to stand on that start line. i would have done anything.

“We’ll see what the doctors say,” she said, although we both knew that was a no.

Till this day I’m still not sure how Coach handled that situation with such grace, it can’t have been easy at all. It certainly wasn't easy for me… Perhaps sadly it was not the first confrontation of this kind she has had to make, because I know I am not the first athlete to face these issues, nor sadly will I be the last. But her utmost calm and caring voice made me want to stop it all, to give it all up and try to get better immediately, if not for myself in that moment, for her and the team. At that stage I couldn't of course, it was still a part of me and everything I did. But that knowledge that she was there, and would always be there. That was something, an olive branch extended, a helping hand that has fostered into the trusting relationship we have today. Without the support, I would have become even more of a victim of the disease. I have no doubt I would have crossed the line of no return, battling to obtain perceived perfection while fighting to uphold a version of external reality.

- Thanks xx