Why I run

Why I run?
I was eight years old when we lived in Rawalpindi at 723A Satellite town. It was the middle of summer and our time was spent climbing trees, hanging out eating shahtoot, making chutney using the green peppers and mint from our backyard. We used to go out and collect empty cigarette packages make a circle on the ground and hit the stash, the ones that went out of the circle would become our winnings. By we I mean my two best friends who were my neighbours, but the incident I want to write about involved Farhat, or was it Iffat? I can't even remember her name anymore. For the time being I will just call her Iffat. So it happened that Iffat and I found a secluded corner of the house one day and decided to play a little game of I show you if you show me. We were in the process of doing and touching and playing our game, when I looked up and saw in the window two girls giggling away. It was my older sister and Iffat's older sister. And they had found us doing something that probably we should not have been doing. The next thing I remember is that I found myself in front of the magistrate. My mother was very stern and for all the times I had been scolded this one had a different tone. The scariest threat was not the physical but what she was saying that would happen to my private parts. I don't know what came over me but somehow I found the strength to escape our servants grip and announced that I was not going to put up with this and was running away never to come back.
Even now my mother and my sister do not recall this incident and yet it is so clear and vivid in my memory that when I run I get in touch with that feeling way back some forty some years ago. I remember I was running and there was a huge empty field in front of our house and I could see that I would run for a long time, chasing me were my sister, her friend, my mother and our servant Mahmood, who by the way could not run as he had a foot injury from partition days. The first feeling that I recall is that I was on my own and that I had no one that I could rely upon. I was running as fast as I could my breathing getting heavier and I thought about were I was going to go? In that moment it didn't matter, I was angry and there was no way anyone was going to catch me. I kept running and slowly this feeling of fear came over me. What was I going to do? Where will I live? The field in front of our house just kept going and going and somehow I knew that I will get tired and they will catch up to me. That is exactly what happened, or maybe I just let it happen and surrendered because I was too tired to run. Back at home I got twice the punishment, one for the dirty deed and the other for running away.
That night I laid in bed and I couldn't stop my tears, they just kept coming and coming. Then something happened, it was as if I had a realization why all this happened and I said to myself that this crying is only for the weak. I made a few decisions that night, I decided that I would not show my weakness again, those who told on me I would show them when I grow up. I also decided that I could not rely on someone who I thought was on my side.
I ran about five miles today, when I run, first of all I feel this freedom, that the only thing that stands between me and my goal is myself. The other feeling I have is that of surrender, eventually I will tire out and will stop running. When I get in touch with surrender I think about all the problems that we try to run away from and then eventually we have to deal with them. I get in touch with all my fears when I run, because as I run, I think about all my irrational fears, and in the end when I am done there is a calm that comes over me. Probably all the release of endorphins, takes care of the negative emotions. I get in touch with whatever has made me angry and it is usually something minor and I can usually do something about it. What I cannot change I have learnt to recognize and not be angry over. There have been times in my life when I was unable to run, because I injured myself or because I choose not to. The cost of not running is aliveness.
In so many ways I am still the same person that I was when I was eight, the only difference is that I am not run by some decision I made when I was eight.