Reaction to Boston: Just Keep Running

I am a runner, I don't know how it happened, but I now run.  I race, I trot, I walk, but I finish.  I'm a runner.  I was out on my long run yesterday when I got a news alert on my phone of the Boston Marathon bombing.  I got stuck in a downpour and ran home as fast as my chubby Italian legs would take me.  All I could hear in my head was Ellen DeGeneres' voice as Dory in Finding Nemo: "Just Keep Swimming". I just couldn't imagine that people were bombed when all they wanted was to watch friends and family members finish the BOSTON FRIGGIN MARATHON, the most recognized race in the world.  The runners wanted to get their medals have an awesome meal/party with their community and go home.  They were robbed of that, and that sucks.  They were bombed by a crackpot for some ridiculous heinous reason who thinks killing and hurting innocent people is going to serve their psychotic purpose.

We need to keep running, we "Just Keep Running."  It is the thing that a lot of us do just to escape the reality of a world full of psycho nut jobs who think blowing people up is a sport in itself.  I know I run to keep the filter from my brain to my mouth in check.  It keeps me from telling a lot of people what I REALLY think.  The crazy lunatics that think innocent people deserve to be maimed and killed, the crazy nut jobs that hate us just because we are American, or white, or black, or a runner, or a woman, or a child, or just for being PEOPLE.  The world is full of horribly psychotic lunatics.  We won't stop them from doing the most horrible things imaginable because we are too worried about hurting someone's feelings, so we strip search and pat down 8-year-old boys, and 92-year-old blue-haired ladies to make a pathetic statement that our safety is the real concern (HUGE EYE ROLL).

We need to as a community, of runners, and just common sense people.  We need to be aware of our surroundings, we need to report suspicious activity, we are no longer a society that can tuck its head in the sand, and think that all people are good.  Unfortunately there are crazy psychotic lunatics whose sole mission is to do us harm, and that is sad.  However, once that fact is accepted it is very empowering.

It gives me the power to call the police when people are at the end of my cul-de-sac smoking weed, it gives me the power to call someone out when they are treating others like dirt, it gives me the power to protect my kids from a bully or just a plain idiot.  It gives the power to be observant of the world around me, and make sure that I am doing my best to not put myself or my children in harms way.

This bombing was the worst type of scenario, it was an attack that was completely unpreventable, and meant to just hurt or kill as many as possible. A large public venue and event that is world known and people from all over the world participate.  It was meant strictly to paralyze us with fear, and hurt us irreparably.  THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE. We cannot let the mean crazy people of the world win.  It is tragic, it affected a community of people that I have begun to become enthralled with, and I have actually joined, because I RUN.  These are exceptional people who will run slow with you to train, help you run faster, pull you across a finish line when you don't think you can go another step.  It is a community of people that runs and raises funds for charities, it is my favorite part of community because there is a common bond and fellowship that doesn't exist in many arenas.  So for that I am horribly broken hearted that pure evil has stuck it's ugly face into such a "safe place".

But we will win.  We will win because we will just keep running, and putting one foot in front of the other, while we pray for those in Boston and the horrible nightmare they have had to endure. We will grow stronger, and more resilient, and aware that there is now an evil force in our community. We will keep running to push the evil out. Just keep running. Just keep running, running, running.

And then run some more.