The purpose is greater than running.

 I started running as a way to save my life.
Before, I didn’t really have a life that was mine. And what I did have was wasting away.

When I was 5 years old my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was then where my childhood ended and my life became dedicated to her. Helping her reach things, helping her shower, giving her medications, missing school to go to chemo sessions. Everything.

My life was my mother and that was my purpose. I wanted her to live so much that I made my life all about her and my family, which was going through a whole other set of problems that resulted in the separation of my parents. My sister and I were there for our mother as much as she was there for us. I lived solely in that circle of my mom, her illness, and my family.

But 7 years later, she died.. 

She died and I did too. I thought I had no purpose in life anymore because she had always been my purpose. I felt like I had nothing so I stopped caring about everything.

The depression I fell into following my mom’s death became a vicious cycle of self-hatred and pain. One that I bared myself because I didn’t want to hurt anyone other than me and I developed an eating disorder.
I started high school with anorexia and went from my chunky 184 pounds to my lowest point of 102. I hated myself, and my ED was the only thing that took away from my sadness through the physical pain of hunger. 
I was so engulfed in a bubble of self harm, and I didn’t even feel like a person anymore. I felt like I was wasting away, with only a shell going through the motions of my life.

It was at that lowest point in my life where everything changed. I met my English (and soon to be Cross Country coach) teacher. To this day, I credit him for having pulled me out of the grave I was digging for myself. He first made me feel like a person be accepting me as I was, and introducing a new perspective on life. First through literature, then through running. I was so eager to know this man, understand him and the his way of thinking in the classroom, that’s when he opened up his team for me to join. 

I realize now that what he offered me then was more than a team, it was an opportunity. A chance to change the path I he could tell I was going down, and offered a new perspective on life that was so provocative I couldn’t resist. And so I chose to this new perspective, and I started by joining the team despite my inability to run more than a mile because my illness made me weak. 

But I gave it my all, and that was all that mattered on that first day, because it’s not about how fast you are, how much you run, or how good you are - it’s about the effort. That and the chance to change yourself each day you decide to run again. From the day I ran my first mile, I realized that it changes you, physically and mentally. The effort you put in day in and day out is a visible improvement that you can see, you can feel it, and it makes you better than who you once were.

When I was running I didn’t have to think about anything other than running, I was not that sad girl I was someone else, someone better and I wasn’t going to give it up. 

It was then when I chose to live and- slowly - gave up my destructive behaviors. Running saved my life by giving me something worth living for. It showed me that I have value, to others and to myself.

It’s been 4 years since I started running, I’m proud to be joining a D1 Cross Country team in the Fall. For me, it’s proof that I am the most improved version of myself because it’s through running that I found that I can be my own purpose.

- Jazmine Reyes (@itsjustme_jaz)