The Cried

We have pollen storms here. Does that happen anywhere else? Clouds of pollen will float down the streets, causing general havoc. They always seem to come by just after you've finished washing the yellow from your car. Also: If you don't wash the pollen off your car, it will eat away at the paint and rot the rubber. It accumulates in the side of the street, making random yellow patches, and then settles down so firmly that the wind can't blow it away. Our gutter drain looks like a puddle of sick, since it is yellow-black from pollen and grime. Pollen rotted out our back deck a few years ago, so we had to rebuild a new one.

It has been pollen season for about two weeks now.

I bring this up because I am suffering from allergies. This has never happened to me before. In fact, I've managed to go the entire two weeks (up until today) without any sort of allergy problems. But we did some running outside today in PE, and I wanted to push myself. It has been a long time since I have run full-speed since I usually have to pace myself for endurance. But today was just a short run, and I wanted to see how fast I was compared to the rest of the class. I am still well above average though not quite fastest, but my legs have gotten wobbly, causing me to feel like I am moving faster than my feet can go. I'll bet I looked like an idiot, with my legs flailing all over the place.

Where was I going with this? Right! Allergies. Well, the point is that I pushed myself to run hard, and that caused me to breath hard. Breathing hard like that triggered my asthma, which was quite painful. Not having my inhaler anywhere nearby (we were told we were going for a walk, not a run), I had to stop. Now, my body is overreacting to the slightest bit of dust, dirt, and pollen in an attempt to keep me from triggering another attack. I kinda hate my immune system.

... I have to wonder. All my life, when we would run in PE, I would be one of the fastest. But I always had to slow down way before anyone else, simply because I was breathing too hard. My muscles would be fine, and I wouldn't even have broken a sweat, but I would be gasping like a fish after just a quarter mile. If I never had asthma, and simply getting enough air was never a problem, do you think I'd be able to log under 12 minutes for a mile? Because 12 minutes is pitiful. I know I have strong leg muscles, and I know I have good muscular endurance in the leg region. I just can't breath.

I wanted to join track back in Jr. High. I've always loved running, I just hate feeling short of breath. I wasn't able to do the running required, otherwise I would have been a long-jumper. We were doing long-jumps in PE one day, and I remember getting a distance that wowed the teacher and put all the other students to shame. It would have worked well for me, too, to be a long jumper. It is short bursts of speed, followed by a jump. And jumps are great, because they are a lot like falling, and falling is just about the best thing in the world. I also had no fear of landing on my butt, but I have a great sense of balance that keeps me landing on my feet anyways.

Whatever. I'm just gonna go make a voodoo doll, and forget all about this.