I was at the little work-out room at our apartment complex today, running on the treadmill. Yes, running! Five minutes fast, ten minutes walking and so on until I completed the 5K program I had punched in. I’m going to start training for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Virginia Beach. It’s in October, so I’ve got plenty of time.
I’ve been trying to fill my iPod with lots of tunes to get me motivated, no easy task, let me tell you. I feel like everything on there, I’ve listened too so many times already. I just need to hear the opening bars of a song and guaranteed, my finger is toggling forward to the next one. I did create a playlist for running, called “Run It” (my creativitiy knows no bounds) and one for when I jump rope (that another story) called “Roped Up”. They’re pretty much the same list with a few slight changes. Still, running and jumping rope require some seriously pumping music.
Anyway, I’m watching the Top 100 songs of the ’80’s while I run since burned through my playlists earlier this week. I had to give it a rest or I wasn’t going to make it through the work-out. So, the commentators on VH1 are pretty funny, and the music that is making the list is even better. I’m feeling really good, kicking up the speed during the best songs like “I Want Candy”, “Walking on Sunshine”, “Word Up!” “Rock Me Amadeus,” and so on. It’s funny because those are songs I would never have downloaded on my own.
You know how you hear a song from the past and it sounds SO good right then and you are singing it at the top of your lungs, rolling down the windows of your car, letting your arm dangle out the window while your hand surfs the breeze and you get that pulling in your chest when your mind and your heart meet for latte’s while the talk about that high school week-end when you and a friend jumped the subway to NYC to meet the boy you liked who lived in the city and it was the coolest thing ever because this was the way to live, just walking up and down the streets while life happened with you, around you, and you had such a great time that you forgot he couldn’t get on the subway with you, so you kissed him through the fencing as the train whooshed into the station and almost left without you, and how you swore you would remember this day forever because it was the best out of your 16 years on Earth, and you would absolutely DIE if you forgot any single detail, and that was pretty much the extent of your worries, none of this crappola like mortgages, cholesterol, Geraldine Ferarro, and 401ks? Do you know that feeling? Yeah, me too.
I can’t remember which exact song that was #1 on Z100 that week, nor can I even remember a song that we heard that day, but I can remember that feeling. I had it today while I was panting along on the treadmill. Unrelated from the memory, from the day, but totally connected to the feeling. Joy, thanks for being my wingman, Jason L, thanks for the memory. For your listening pleasure and be sure to turn your speakers up. Way up.