Not running away

My healing has required distance, not to erase my past but to stop letting it define me. For a long time, I was the partner who gave everything and learned how little I could survive on in return. I smoothed edges. I swallowed needs. I stayed quiet to keep the peace and protect the hope I still believed in. Somewhere along the way, I mistook endurance for love and still fell behind.

I didn’t wake up one day and decide to live differently. The course my life would take was decided for me. It was handed to me. There is a big difference in survival depending on which side of the story you stand on. The nuance matters.

For many weeks, I stood at the bottom of a hole and looked out from the darkness, assessing the task of emerging into the light. The expectations, whether real or imagined, made it feel as though upward was the only acceptable direction. Pull. Climb. Catapult. Any means necessary, as long as there was direct and instant motion.

I paced. Sat down. Stood again. Day after day. Until I ignored the noise. My path out of the darkness was not just up, but forward before anything else. That was the first decision that was truly mine. After weeks of standing still, I took a step forward.

Little by little, my pace quickened from a walk to a run. My distance from the starting point extended, too. Each day the goal was to move forward, but not every day looked the same. Some days I went farther and moved harder. Other days, I zigzagged a bit. On the days I was too tired, I rested.

Running is not just a metaphor.

I laced up my shoes, put music in my ears, and ran. I liked the control and the exhaustion that came with achievement. Running was the only way I knew to push my body when my brain was stuck. Each day a little farther or a little faster. I easily monitored my progress and had something to do that felt both necessary and praiseworthy.

On January 3, 2026, I used that momentum to run for myself. Not away from the past or toward anyone else. The distance I created shifted my focus and recentered my hope on me, not on understanding us.

I ran my first 10k from start to finish. I ran it with a smile that six months earlier had been impossible to muster. The same playlist that once brought tears no longer did when I pressed play. Only Rita Ora’s Let You Love Me tested my strength. But I had trained too hard for that moment to let one song dim the light. I swallowed the tears before they fully formed and I crossed the finish line with energy to spare. I felt happier and healthier than I had in more than a year. More than two years, if I’m honest.

The race ended. I didn’t. I continue to heal and to move, increasing the distance between myself and the hole that once trapped me.