Help Reza raise money

I’ve always loved cinema. There are many films I’ve watched over and over again, but one stands far above all the others for me: Forrest Gump.

One of Forrest Gump’s very first lines, after introducing himself and offering chocolates to a woman sitting beside him at a bus stop, is a quote from his mother: “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”

That’s exactly how life has always felt to me: full of unexpected turns.

Beyond that, running is one of the film’s central themes. Forrest, who has weak legs as a child, is forced to wear strange leg braces. But one day, when he has no choice, he starts running. The braces break apart and for the first time, we discover how incredibly fast he really is. A speed that eventually carries him all the way to college football.

Later in the film, Forrest runs again. One day, sitting outside his house overwhelmed with grief and longing, he suddenly gets up and starts running. That run eventually stretches from America’s East Coast to the West Coast and back again, months and months of running.

And now, just as unexpectedly, with only one week left before the Calgary Marathon, I signed up for the 10K race.

This will be my first time ever participating in a running event. I wouldn’t even call myself an amateur runner, although I do work out regularly for my health.

Like Forrest Gump, this run comes from difficult days: from grief, homesickness, heartbreak, and surviving more than a few hard chapters. That’s why the name of my one-person team is “Iran”; for all the painful and heavy days my country has gone through in recent months.

And the donations raised through this run will go to a suicide prevention organization, because..

Well, there are personal reasons for running, too.

In any case, this is what I’m doing this year.

And let me make one more film-and-TV reference. In an episode of How I Met Your Mother, Barney (one of the characters) insists that running doesn’t really require preparation, that you just start running. To prove his point, he signs up for a marathon. He actually finishes it.. but on the subway ride home, he realizes his legs are no longer capable of moving.

Hopefully, my story won’t end quite like that.

As that blond-haired man who turned the world upside down likes to say: “We’ll see what happens.”