Naturally High...on Life!

(Dude, if you were as dependent on federal financial aid as I have been for the last ten years, you would also never, ever risk losing financial aid over a doobie or scooby or whatever, and so natural highs are literally the only highs I really have ever known.)

I like to run, because running gives you a natural hit of endorphins. When I feel awful (anxious, stressed out, upset, angry, sad) it is the only thing that makes me feel better, apart from listening to "Mushaboom" on repeat, which is losing its restorative power. It takes a good 20 minutes of steady running to get that high, but 20 minutes is not so much. Run for an hour or so, and I feel awesome. I am sort of getting why people do drugs.

However, running hurts me, badly. It's my own body's fault: bad feet, knees, ankles. So I have been walking 6 miles a day to and from school, briskly, if unfashionably. Fortunately, I live in a crunchy granola liberal college city where I can wear work-out clothes and look totally appropriate, even if a little part of me dies every day. But not my heart! That's getting stronger. And I'm getting the same benefits from walking as running, or at least, the pants, they fit on me, and the undergrads, they hit on me.

But, no high from fast walking. Well, at least not the same long-lasting "wow I am so awesome" feeling I get from a six mile run. Alas, no way to get the runner's high without running? No, I can't bike or swim. Running indoors on a treadmill doesn't get me the same thrill, because I feel like a gerbil and there is no "see ya, suckas, eat my dust!" feeling of whizzing by some morose teenager.

I think this means the end of my days of getting high. Maybe I should take some dance classes. They used to always make me so happy, especially that most useless of dances and '90s crazes, swing dancing.