Run Times

***this is only vaguely attached to my past life in a very teeny way i promise, for example I still have a low paying job as a student worker and I don't consider myself in anyway a quiet type :)***

I was exactly 19.605 years old when I first ran out of words. I was silent for the first time in 18 and a half years, the first time since I first started chattering almost without a stopping, except to eat (sometimes I chattered while eating) or sleep. I wish I could tell you a very exciting or tragic story as to why this happened, some story that would make you weep very hard or laugh out loud like IMers claim to do all the time on yahoo messenger. I wish it were a story you could put on Lifetime and make inspirational for women, and struggling people. No, this isn’t that story. I think I had just spoken so much, so fast and for so long that I had said all I had to say about anything.

I was by no means absolutely mute. I answered questions, I asked questions, I spoke to people. I just became that characteristic alien to my previous nature: taciturn.

I was sitting on a bus when it happened. All my friends had gone home for the holidays and I was alone in our small town with no one to chatter at. Someone sat next to me and said: “will you be staying till the end of summer?” and I said “Yes”. I did not say : “Yes, I’ll be working and …..” or “Maybe, I haven’t decided yet but....” Just “Yes”.

I was tired of everything and had a good feeling that everything was tired of me, or at least my voice.

When I got home that day, for the first time the silence in my room did not overwhelm me. I did not immediately turn on the radio, or the TV to fill the silence.

I sat.

I thought

I looked at my life.

My life consisted of a low-paying job that fuelled the purchase of not very attractive low-quality clothing on my US size 10 frame and also the purchase of cheap food that maintained the said size 10 frame

“Not attractive” I thought. All of a sudden, my mind shook and groaned under all the weight of the dissatisfied thoughts that had been repressed amidst my chattering. I felt an almost physical pain as I thought of all the unpleasant aspects of my life

And just like that I decided to run.

I can’t tell you that the minute I started running, I could run everywhere and anywhere without running out of breath. The first time, I turned back after 15 minutes and swore never to go again.

Soon, though I realized that I only got absolute clarity in my head when I was running (or shall I say trying to run…) and soon the weight became too heavy to bear and I wandered out again.

Whenever I put on my sneakers I ran away from all my issues, silently, with no music but my thoughts towards a destination I was not sure existed. I ran in the rain or sun. I ran whether I felt like it or not.

One day, I got to my destination.

I did not recognize my destination when I saw it. It looked strange and unfamiliar. My destination was happy and beautiful. My destination glowed and was full of light. My destination beckoned with a bewitching smile.

My destination was me.