There comes a moment in life when the world’s noise finally quiets — not because it stops speaking, but because you stop listening.
And in that silence, something else begins to whisper — a voice you had long forgotten was yours.
From childhood, I carried a label — “You cannot run.”
It wasn’t cruel, just casual.
But those are the words that burrow deepest.
And so, through school and beyond, I stayed in my safe lanes — team events, relays, and track disciplines that never demanded a sprint. I excelled there, enough to earn medals and titles. But still, inside me, a quiet sentence sat untouched: You cannot run.
When I moved to the U.S., I began to meet myself again — not the version shaped by others’ expectations, but the one waiting beneath all those layers.
Every new experience peeled away something:
fear, hesitation, habit, and sometimes, even identity.
Like peeling an onion, the deeper I went, the more truth I found — tears included.
And somewhere in that journey, I began to run.
At forty-three, I started. Slowly, awkwardly, breathlessly.
At forty-four, I began to walk-run 5Ks.
And today, I ran a 12K — not as a runner in competition, but as a woman in conversation with her younger self.
This wasn’t a victory of distance.
It was a quiet rebellion against every label I had once accepted without question.
It was me telling myself: They cannot tell you who you are. You can.
When you stop listening to the outside voices,
you begin to hear your heartbeat sync with something truer.
You begin to understand that competition was never meant to be with the world — it was always meant to be with the self that said, I can’t.
I owe this awakening to three souls who hold me steady:
To my mother — whose absence created a void I now fill with purpose. Every mile I run feels like a conversation with her spirit. I run to honor her strength, to transform my solitude into gratitude.
To my husband — my constant, my quiet pillar. He walks and runs beside me, wordless yet unwavering, knowing when I need pace and when I need pause.
To my daughter — who has made me strong in ways she may never fully see. In loving her, I learned to love myself more fiercely, to model resilience not by perfection but by persistence.
Today, my father asked, half-worried and half-wondering,
“Why did you do this when you were unwell all week?”
I heard a concern laced with pride. Perhaps even he realized that this run was never about fitness; it was about listening.
When I crossed the finish line, I didn’t see the clock.
I saw my past self standing there — the one who had once believed she couldn’t — smiling quietly, stepping aside to let me through.
As Rumi said,
“The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.”
I am learning to listen —
to the quiet voice that says, You can.
To the breath that reminds me, You are alive.
And to the rhythm of my feet that whispers,
You are becoming.
