A Total Eclipse of the Heart

Trip back in time

Three days ago, a high school friend texted me a GIF of Bonnie Tyler singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” followed by a text that read “Three days.”

I will admit it took me a minute. Then, like being struck by lightning, I understood that she was referring to the solar eclipse that covered large swaths of the USA and Canada today.

So you would think that the solar eclipse would be the only possible meaning of a Bonnie Tyler GIF. However, I have a strong memory related to that song, and that memory includes the very same friend who sent me the text.

In high school, my friend and I ran cross country. I’m of the belief that you must be a little insane to run cross-country. You never get out of meets for rain. It doesn’t have the glory of any other sport, and honestly, it isn’t exciting. No balls are flying through the air, no touchdowns or home runs. You run, and you run, and you keep doing that for a far distance. We knew we were a tad crazy to do this sport and to keep doing it every year.

I didn’t even really like running, but I deeply loved the girls on the team. They were the reason I kept doing it every year, and I’m still very close friends with two of them.

One day, we had to share the bus with the tennis team. They had a match at the same place we had a cross-country meet, so we bus-pooled together. Someone had made a mix tape for the journey, and on it comes the fast version of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse…