There's something about the New York City Marathon that makes me cry. I've always been emotionally susceptible to pageants and awkward displays of pride and strength—a high school marching band, for instance, can cause me to weep for hours. You know how it goes, there's always that one kid in the trombone section with pants that are the wrong color; or the lone 14 year-old majorette with a featherless hat, marching forward, one step at a time, twirling her heart out and hoping she can make it to the end of the parade without any of the spectators pointing and laughing. Or in my case, crying.

I watch an individual trying to do his best, and huge waves of messy emotion wash over me. Multiply that by 20,000 runers, and you can understand my ten year ban on marathon viewing. I just can't take it.

For the fifteen years I lived in New York City, I somehow managed to end up on the elevated subway platform at Queensboro Plaza on every single Marathon Sunday, staring down at the mass of humanity curving onto the ramp of the 59th Street Bridge. I might have been fine had I viewed the mass as a mass, but always my eyes would roam to the one person who seemed to be limping, the man with the tattered and inappropriate running clothes, or the sad looking woman with the t-shirt that read "this is for you, Mom." I'd zoom in on these people, start to cry, then rush to my Sunday Brunch piano job with swollen eyes and a runny nose.

One year, determined to avoid my annual emotional meltdown, I left two hours early for work. As was my habit, I changed trains at QB Plaza, looked down, and there they were: The wheelchair runners, the blind runners, the runners with one leg, or no legs, or no arms, the mentally challenged runners, runners pulling each other up onto the bridge, crossing the East River and creeping (in some cases crawling) towards the finish line.

I'm still recovering from witnessing this.

Yesterday, our German friend Mathias Teuscher ran in the New York City Marathon. Reluctantly—afraid that I might spend the remainder of the day weeping in a corner—I lifted my ten-year marathon viewing ban and turned on the television just in time to hear the boom of the starting gun. There they were, my old friends the runners, a new crowd of them, all different shapes and sizes, a whirl of color and motion as they ran across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, a bright blue sky framing the steely lines of that graceful structure, the determined and hopeful faces of the competitors rushing past the camera and towards a goal they had dreamed of—and worked for— for years. Yes, I cried, but for the first time I understood why.

We're weak when we need excuses, but strong when our convictions clear the cluttered paths of our lives, making room for our dreams. We can write books, or symphonies, raise children, plant a field with sunflowers, climb a mountain, or run across bridges in a 26 mile race. That's something to cheer about, or if you're a hormonally-challenged fifty year-old woman, it's also something to cry about. Happy crying, as my daughter calls it—a tear or two of joyous confirmation, a sob of celebration, a shout to the heavens that we human beings are miraculous creatures with unlimited potential.

Please pass the tissues.

Mathias finished the race in 4 hours and 15 minutes.

Robin Meloy Goldsby is the author of Piano Girl: A Memoir