This week I'm running the TCS World 10k — my comeback to running after over a year of fighting an injury. A few days ago, I was on a call with my dad and told him I was genuinely worried I wouldn't finish. I mentioned, almost in passing, that I'd asked someone close to me if they'd come watch in the morning, and they'd said no too early and that they'd be bored. My dad said, "that sucks. Let me see if I can come."
That's the kind of moment that made me want to write this.
I think the biggest privilege I've received in life has nothing to do with money, or schools I got to go to. It's having emotionally available parents. People hear that and nod — "yeah, mine are great too." And maybe they are. But I want to be specific about what I mean, because my parents aren't super-humans, and I think it's irrational to expect anyone's to be. What they are is something rarer: available when it's mattered, and honest even when they've disagreed.
There have been so many moments in my life where I've made choices that cut directly against how they're wired. A few that come to mind, after college, instead of picking up a job like everyone around me, I took a break to travel around the country. They're both STEM PhDs, and I chose to study economics. Then after my economics degree, I decided that wasn't for me either, and went to work at a tech startup. None of these were the obvious path for their daughter, and they said so, pretty clearly. "We wouldn't do this. We don't agree with it. But it's your life, and the consequences are yours to deal with." They expressed concern every single time. And then they let me go do it anyway.
And I know they actually meant it when they said "it's your life", because once the decision was made, they didn't pester me about whether it was the right or wrong call. No "I told you so" waiting in the wings, no lingering disapproval. They accepted my choices for what they were, and eventually always came around. They've learnt, over time, that I have different life goals, different ambitions, different views, and that none of that makes me any less their daughter.
What that built in me, without them ever quite saying it, is the conviction that I need to do what's right for me, and that only I know what that is. If I'm wrong, I'll stumble and figure it out. That's not something you pick up from a book or a mentor later in life. It has to be built into you young, by the people who raised you.
And the thing is, they taught me to stand on my own feet without ever making me feel alone. Not the Western tough-love version where you're thrown out at 16 to figure it out. They've been there for every milestone and every low point. They're still the first people I call when I'm celebrating or grieving. Honestly, I still call my mom when I have a bad migraine, and my dad when I'm spiralling. Standing on my own feet never meant standing alone.
Here's the part I've only recently started to understand. The love they've given me has set the benchmark for every other relationship in my life. Anyone who knows me closely knows that I've rarely — maybe never — really been hurt by people. That's not a coincidence. It's because I hold everyone around me to the standard of the love I grew up with. I expect emotional availability. People who show up, who are kind, who know how to communicate when things get hard. Anyone who can't reciprocate that, I haven't kept around. And as a result, I've ended up with a circle of people I genuinely love being in.
That's why I call it the biggest privilege. It's the quietest one too. The kind you don't notice you have until you look around and realise not everyone got it. It shapes the choices you have the courage to make, the people you let close, the way you move through the world.
On Sunday, I'll be at the start line, probably nervous, probably not sure if I can finish. But somewhere along the route, I'll know my parents are looking for me in the crowd. And honestly, that's the whole thing.