Several years ago as I was sitting on the subway in DC, my eyes caught the information for the DC Marine Marathon. As I read a well of emotion began to rise and tears formed and fell from my eyes. I have been aware of wanting to run a marathon for quite a while and yet I stopped my desires with a list of can'ts. For the last six months I have faced that list and on January 27, 2008 I walked 26.2 miles in 7 hours and 26 minutes and when I finished I was on an incredible high! I have lived almost 65 years.
When asked whom I was walking for I intuitively responded ‘for all the lonely people’; people who stop short of doing what their heart wants. Who stop listening or try so hard to not listen and come up with every excuse why not; whose conversations are filled with buts and who see no love coming at them. I walked for all the lonely people who I like to think I am no longer a member of that club. I am noticing that I no longer linger for extended periods in those thoughts; I see them and am making a choice not to suffer.
I walked for all the lonely people who drown in their loneliness who will not reach out or cannot reach out for help for whatever reason. And for all the lonely people who do not reach to help others and soothe their own pain of isolation.
I walked because I wanted to prove to myself that I am the amazing woman that I believe I am and when I can physically do this I will have climbed every mountain, walked across every stream and found my dream. I found the dream. And I love walking around with my well-earned medal around my neck.
I walked for the lonely that think they do not make a difference in the world, who yearn for love, a smile, support crossing the street, carrying the bundles upstairs, caring for their sick child.
I walked so that I no longer get caught in the illusion of loneliness. I walk because others need me to be all I can be in the world and by healing my heart, standing strongly with my heart letting myself back into my heart I can make a difference and do my part in healing the world. In listening I am building a deeper relationship with the Divine and me and can answer the question; Ayecha? Where are you? with assuredness.
And I hear the Beatles words, ‘All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong?’
I live alone and have for more than ten years. I am an only child. I love solitude and many times I have battled with the feelings of drowning in loneliness. I am therefore sensitive to this feeling in the world. I saw this in nursing homes, when people are always on their cell phones and when I walk in my gated retirement community and see people looking at the ground.
It helped to read that Rabbi Soleveitchik in Lonely Man of Faith wrote that when he was lonely he remembered that his God was lonely, too. Abraham Joshua Heschel said when he walked with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama that his feet were praying and that is just what I did with each step I could hear my heart singing the four letters of G!D’s name. The rhythm soothed and relaxed me.
In 1996 -1997 I took a year to travel around the world on a solo journey. I left thinking no one would care or that I did not matter to anyone ‘so just go.’ About half way around in New Zealand I began to get a grip of the truth. This thought I had was an illusion to protect my heart and keep me from being in relationship with all those who love me and with myself. I discovered that I do matter. And my presence however I chose to use it makes a difference and that I need to take responsibility for this presence. I am integrating this memory.
‘It is going to be all right,’ Cher sings. ‘This is a song’ …and a walk….and ‘a prayer…for all the lonely people so that they know they are remembered and that they are never alone. When your dreams won’t come true, Some one is there for you’
I know now I was never alone, am never alone, Hallelu Yah. May everyone be so blessed to hold this thought under their eye lids to read when needed!
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