Running from the Noise Within
For the past three days, I’ve been clearing out my stuff boxes that have been sitting untouched for years, shelves covered in dust, and drawers filled with papers, photos, and random things I once thought were too important to throw away. I told myself it was time to declutter to finally get rid of the unnecessary weight I’d been carrying around. I thought keeping myself busy would stop me from overthinking. I thought throwing away things would somehow throw away the heaviness inside me.
Instead the opposite happened. Every box I opened seemed to hold a piece of me I wasn’t ready to see again. A photo would pull me back into a moment I thought I’d forgotten. A letter, even one sentence long would make me feel the ache of someone’s absence. And as I sat surrounded by piles of memories, I realized I wasn’t just cleaning my room... I was reopening chapters of my life I had quietly buried.
The memories came back uninvited, like predators stalking me in my own home. I could feel them creeping closer, whispering words I didn’t want to hear, showing me faces and moments I tried so hard to leave behind. I didn’t know what triggered them exactly but once they came they wouldn’t stop. And the more I tried to busy myself, the louder they became.
So, I did the only thing I could think of... I ran after each day of decluttering.
At first, it was just a short jog, something to shake off the heaviness. But it quickly became something more. Running became my escape, my way of drowning out the noise inside my head. I wanted to run until my legs could no longer carry me, until my body was too exhausted to feel anything else. I wanted the pounding of my heart to be louder than the chaos in my mind.
The moment my feet hit the pavement, I could feel my body come alive. The first few steps were always the hardest... the stiffness, the burn in my lungs but then the rhythm took over. My heart pumped rapidly and for a while, it felt like I was fighting back. Every drop of sweat, every breathless gasp was proof that I was still here, still standing, still trying.
The pain in my legs became a distraction I could control. It was a pain I chose, unlike the kind that haunted me when the world grew silent. When my body screamed for me to stop, I whispered to myself, “Just a little more.” Because I knew that stopping meant hearing the noise again... the noise that reminded me of everything I’ve lost, everything I couldn’t change, everything I still carried deep inside.
Running became my therapy, even though I never called it that. It was a way to escape without really escaping. With every stride, I tried to outrun my thoughts, to leave them somewhere on the road behind me. I ran until the sky turned dark and the streetlights flickered on. I ran in silence, just listening to the sound of my own breathing. It became a strange kind of peace painful, yet comforting.
There were moments when I’d slow down, when fatigue took over and I’d think about how running mirrors life. No matter how far you go the past has a way of catching up. But still, you run. You keep going because stopping hurts even more. Each run became a reminder that I’m stronger than I think that even when my mind is drowning in noise, my body knows how to fight.
After every long run, I’d collapse into the ground, body sore, muscles trembling. The exhaustion was my only relief. The ache in my legs told me I’d pushed myself hard enough to quiet my mind, at least for a few hours. In that tired silence, I could finally sleep... not because I’d found peace but because I’d run far enough to escape it for one night.
Maybe one day, I’ll stop running from the past and start running toward something toward healing, peace or forgiveness. Maybe the miles I leave behind will slowly become the distance between who I was and who I’m becoming. But for now, I run. I run to survive.
Running doesn’t erase the pain. It doesn’t fix the broken parts of me. But it reminds me that I’m still capable of moving forward even when the weight of the past tries to pull me down. And sometimes that’s all I need to know that no matter how heavy the noise gets inside my head, my heart can still beat louder.
So I keep going... one breath, one ache, one step at a time. Because as long as I can run, I know I’m still alive.