I’m being redundant; feel free to ignore me.

Within a single semester I receive doctors notes from quiet, bright Simone-with-the-dimples to excuse her absences and allow her to make up missed assignments.

Today she returns to class after a week long hiatus with a new note: this one for an infection.  She confides in me: “Those notes, Ms. Scott, are because I had to have 2 abortions.”  This infection came from a glitch in the last abortion.

The second semester she returns to repeat my class.  She starts missing assignments pretty early.  This weekend she’s found herself at a party in some unsavory part of the city. She’s trying to change her ways, she tells me, and the guy who took her to the, erehem, gathering is angry that she won’t have sex with him.  So he leaves her to find her own way back to the campus.

When I ask Simone how she finds these “friends” she can’t recall.  At the mall maybe.  Her father, a preacher, is already not happy with her first semester grades,  but he’s allowed her to return to Richmond from Detroit to redeem herself.  So far, she’s doing a bang up job and all because, “Ms. Scott, I guess I like the rush.”

I suggest she consider sky diving instead.  It’s, at least, regulated.

Fast forward.

Today I ran like the fool child I am. 18.74 miles to be exact.

Because I was so down.  Down from what? I wondered to myself last night.    I just couldn’t shake my blues.  Oh goody; how long would this episode last and what name could I give it to pretend it away?  I bought myself some Rolos and some Gain detergent and told myself I would make it through this one like the others before it.

I rolled around forever struggling to get up this morning even though I went to bed last night like I had a job to go to.  Always a bad sign.

When I finally stumbled down my steps, I strapped on the heart monitor, hydrated, laced up, and hit the road.  3:53 later, I feel like a new woman.  An older one, with these aches, but alas, so much better.

Thank you adrenaline for not making me use my prescription card or my body (okay, well technically I did use my body) to cop my high!

I hope Simone has discovered something equally incredible to cop her high.