Some people have a six-pack...I have a keg.

Through my adult life I have battled with the number on the bathroom scale. I wasn't a chubby child, I grew fast so I was tall and just the right size for my height even though I towered over everyone in my class, even the teacher. I never thought of myself as fat, just a bit larger than everyone else. I was not lazy. I played sports, I rode my bicycle, I hiked and walked, I enjoyed life and all of the food that came with it. I'm a better cook for having tasted such a variety of foods and spices.

Here I am, at the penultimate age of 49. I am on the cusp of that earth-shattering milestone called "Fifty". Half a century. It's not half my life though 'cause I doubt very much I'll live to 100. So I'm more than half way home, God help me.

Over the years I've tried to lose weight. Weight Watchers told me not to pay attention to the number on the scale but to listen to my body, watch the changes in the mirror and see how my clothes fit. And yet at the beginning of every meeting they weighed me in and they measured my success by a number. Despite my constantly wounded ego, I was moderately successful, I lost 67 pounds. Shopping in the section where there are no X's in the size label, that was a big day for me. It was short-lived, however. I was also very active in hockey and I worked out to the point of nearly puking at least twice a week. I venture to say I did not enjoy my workouts. There was no opiate-like adrenaline rush. Instead, my brain constantly screamed 'why' at me, as if this torture was simply a slow and painful way to die, rather than the key to a healthier life. That was nearly ten years ago and a lot has changed.

I've put the 67 pounds back on since then. In fact, I've put on another 20 on top of that. If I don't look in the mirror, I feel okay. I don't need to be reminded that I'm overweight by checking it out in the mirror, don't you think I know it? I close my eyes and breathe deeply and life is good, I feel happy. I don't see that my ass comes through a doorway fifteen seconds after me. I don't notice that my double chin is more like a triple chin. How is that, in any way, a measure of who I am?

What I do see is that my mother puts her arms around me and tells me that she loves me, just like she did when I was a kid. I see that the man I love looks at me with gentleness and it stirs up the butterflies in my stomach when he strokes my face. I can admire fields of flowers (my eyeballs didn't gain any weight). I can walk with a girlfriend at lunchtime, we can talk about nothing in particular and my soul comes away warmed by her friendship. I can sip a cup of coffee and exhale with an "aaaah" of appreciation. I can pet a kitten and make it purr, giggling as it tickles my face with its whiskers. I can read, watch tv, smile, laugh and feel loved.

None of these things have a weight requirement.

Why then, do I allow myself to worry about the number on the bathroom scale? It taunts me. I know it is higher than it has ever been. There is no number that defines me, not even my age, there is only the way I choose to be and I choose to be me. And whatever that number ends up being on the bathroom scale, so be it. As long as I am happy, my doctor is happy with my health and I am surrounded by people who love me, then nothing else matters.

Although the world if full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. ~Helen Keller

I take a few tentative steps and sharp pains shoot up my legs. It would make sense if my shoes were too tight but these are the same shoes I wear every day. They are well worn and the leather has expanded to fit my feet perfectly. No, these pains are something else.

Each step is excruciating but I have come to recognize the agony for what it is, a constant in my life. Like Avogadro's number it is never changing, permanent. As my foot hits the pavement the pain moves up my body and I am flush with inner heat. Yet, my skin is prickled and the hair on my arms stand up as if I've been thrown into a blast chiller. My eyes cloud and I realize that I've been holding my breath. I let out what's left in my lungs and lift my shoulders, inhaling deeply but the expansion in my chest puts pressure in areas I can't name and the pain explodes like white lightning behind my eyes. I exhale and begin to receive much needed oxygen slowly and shallow. The only way my body will allow. I fight against the pain just to breathe.

I take more steps and the shooting pain sets up a rhythm. I am able to handle its predictability but then the wave hits me. A dull ache washes over me like warm bathwater on dry skin. But this is overwhelming in its urgency. The sharp pains are still there but I am awash with a full body ache, my thoughts floating, struggling to focus.

I put one step in front of the other. I concentrate on one thought. Get through this day. 

My body is heavy as lead, my skin electrified. A dampness clings to me and I am chilled, yet inside I am on fire. I feel like an oven that is capable of producing ice. Ice from fire. I am an enigma.

My pace is slow but progressive and although my body cries out at every move, I do not stop. I am pulled by a desperate need. It's a bubbling in my chest. A desire to be useful. I cannot let this day go by without accomplishing something. Anything. The list is long and my energy is limited. Persistence is all that keeps me going.

This motherfucker will not take me down today. This pain is conquerable. Just.

I don't know what lies ahead. I don't plan that far. All I know is if I lift my foot, move it toward my destination and place it down I can move forward. I do it and my body cries out in protest. My eyes narrow and I clench my fists. What's next, my foggy mind asks rhetorically.

Lift, move, place. Lift, move, place. Breathe. Repeat.

Will there ever be relief? I don't know. All I know is this moment and my determination to get to the next moment. The pain isn't going anywhere, but I am. I am going to live my life and the pain, sharp or dull, sudden or indefatigable, can go straight to the dark, soulless hell it came from. At least, I can imagine it there, struggling in its own pergatory to survive.

My eyes begin to clear and the air around me seems drenched with oxygen. I feel a burst of energy reaching out to my limbs, assisting them effortlessly in their task. The grey, dreary day seems imminently brighter and I feel the hand of my Higher Power embrace my pain. The ache does not dissipate but I find a new strength in my core that steels me against its onslaught.

I am not alone. Thank God.

I take another step and beyond the stabbing pain in my legs, I feel the cushioning sole of my shoe hugging my arch, stroking me in a motherly way. There is hope. My jaw relaxes into what would be a smile if my face was not still contorted in agony. Around me people walk. They do not see my pain. They see that my brow is knitted and I am without humour. They avoid me, giving a wide berth, enough for a freight train.

The train in my head blows its whistle and on the next exhale, a single syllable escapes my lips. It is an agonizing groan but sounds more like a growl. A startled woman looks up at me and her berth grows as she crosses the street to avoid coming anywhere close to me. Her dog scuttles away with her. A young man, texting on his cell phone, jolts my shoulder as he passes, sending a debilitating spasm down my spine from the impact. He barely notices what he has done to me. It's just pain but they don't feel it. They don't want to understand it. Where there is pain, there is fear.

I lift my foot, move it forward and place it down on the pavement. I do the same with the other foot and then I repeat. Just get through this day and bless them, Lord, for they know not what they do.

Squirrel!!

Some people are able to work systematically. If they have ten tasks to do, they begin at number one, complete it, move on to number two and so on. I am not like that.

I am easily distracted. Squirrel!

From the Disney Pixar movie "Up!"

If I have ten tasks to do in a allotted amount of time, I will complete them in a haphazard manner until the time runs out, working a bit on one then moving to another then back to the first then starting on the fifth. And if I only complete eight or nine, the ones I leave incomplete could very well have been the first ones on the list. Let's face it, nobody can really get a specific number of tasks done in a specific amount of time. I just don't think it's possible to always allot the exact amount of time required for everything. I can't even get this blog done without checking my email after I write a paragraph or stopping halfway to make a pot of coffee. The truth is, I started this blog entry weeks ago and it has sat in my Drafts folder ever since.

I'm not saying that distractions are a bad thing. I like to think of myself as a multi-tasker, able to work on many tasks at the same time, or at least very close to each other. There is a theory that says the human mind cannot actually multi-task but some people can become very good at moving between tasks quickly and efficiently so it appears as though they are doing two things at once. I like to think of myself as one of those people.

Others may disagree, especially when I give them a blank stare instead of an answer to their question. But they don't live inside my head. When it seems as though there is no ATP production going on inside my skull, there is actually a myriad of activity. I could have any number of thoughts occupying my attention. For instance, I may be composing a paragraph for my book, creating my next journal or blog entry, trying to remember the name of an actor I like, figuring out if I have enough clean underwear to last the week so I don't have to do laundry, taking inventory of my fridge contents from memory and coming up with a balanced meal to prepare later in the day, listing off my work tasks and their deadlines and then prioritizing them accordingly, fantasizing about my amazing boyfriend, replaying a conversation that went horribly wrong, wondering what to do for the weekend, worrying about money, or tossing a mental coin over whether I will have tea or water to quench my thirst.

All of this can quite easily be derailed by a phone call, email, text, conversation, look, loud noise or need to pee. And then it starts all over again with my brain asking questions or perusing ideas to reconstruct the list it once had bouncing around. The quick brown fox...I wonder what idiotic thing Mitt Romney said today...who was that guy in that movie where he kissed the girl right before he...I could make a salad for dinner if the tomatoes are ripe...don't forget to email the Dean after the enrollments are done...I wish I was kissing Richard...and on and on and on.

Multi-tasking. It's not for everyone.

Write, right?

There is a saying among writers, 'a book writes itself". That's obviously not true and my recent lack of sleep can attest to that but in an odd way I understand this phrase. In the same way that Michaelangelo stated his sculptures already existed within the marble, he simply removed the unnecessary bits, I have come to know how my characters can drive the creative process in a way that seems to remove me as an element.

Creating a book is a bit more like a puzzle where you have infinite combinations of your source material (words, sentences, chapters), how you put those materials in order is the key. Brian Henry, book editor and creator of the Quick Brown Fox blog/newsletter/email, has added to that idea by saying 'it doesn't matter what you write about, but how you write it'. This contrasts with the commonly held belief that you should write what you know, in other words, the more you know your subject matter, the easier it is to write about it.

I have to agree with Brian here and my acquiescence has only come about in the last few days after I participated in a marathon writing contest, the 3 Day Novel Contest, where writers are challenged to write a complete novel from start to finish in 3 days. That's 72 hours of complete and utter mental torture. At times I felt I was doing okay and that I'd make it to the end but there were other times when I was in a blind panic wondering why I did this to myself.

After the first day of organizing my thoughts and writing what I was convinced was a stupendously bad beginning chapter, I realized I would need to forgo sleep if I was going to create anything close to a novel in three days. I went on the 3DNC website and re-read their survival guide. They indicated that the first day is usually a complete write off (no pun intended) and I didn't feel I had wasted the day or created complete garbage prose but I could see how it takes time to get into a flow so I accepted the less than successful first day blues.

I managed three hours of sleep before I was rudely awakened by an inspired thought. I went to the computer and began to type. And I typed. And typed. I have no idea where the inspiration came from or how the words formed themselves into sentences. They just happened. I wrote dialogue with ease, something that has been a vexation in my writing. Normally I avoid it. But here I was putting words in my character's mouths that fit with who they were, or rather who I had made them. I wrote a Texas accent. I flirted with clichés and skirted stereotypes. I danced.

Late into the evening of the second day, I was at about 4.5 hours sleep, 2 pots of coffee at home, 2 trips to a coffee shop to meet a fellow 3DNC writer to commiserate and 1 trip for fast food. I needed to sleep so I did what every sane person does, I went grocery shopping. I thought I would clear my head of the jumble of ideas. All I did was people watch and add to the tippy pile of plot twists, dialogue and descriptive text already threatening to take me down.

At midnight I resumed writing. It was at that time, for no apparent reason, that I wrote things I hadn't preconceived. I wrote new characters who hadn't existed anywhere except in that moment. And as I forced myself to breathe through the giant lump in my throat and goosebumps all over my body, I was presented, from somewhere deep inside me, with infinite possibilities for the outcome of my story. My book began to write itself. I named one of my characters after my father, something I hadn't given a thought to but it made perfect sense in hindsight. I wrote a speech that one character delivered. I was writing dialogue like it was second nature. And I couldn't get rid of the goosebumps.

Mid-morning I wrote a sentence that wrapped up a chapter. It was a powerful sentence and I wept. I asked myself what came next and the answer was 'nothing'. I had my ending. I spent the rest of the day editing, expanding on prose that I had previously glossed over, where I had made editor's notes to come back if I had time. I had time.

I read through the entire manuscript, knowing I would need to re-write the first chapter and was surprised to find it wasn't as bad as I remembered. My inner editor had been very critical in the beginning but somewhere after the first midnight passed, I killed her. There was no time for self-doubt or criticism. I had a novel to write, dammit.

I met my co-conspirator shortly after midnight. We both had finished on time and were set to submit our manuscripts (hers after she typed up her hand-written notes) and we were surprised to learn we had both created roughly the same number of pages and words (64 pages and 16,661 words for me, 62 pages and 14,983 words for her). The next day was spent in a daze and sometime that evening I began to cry. The first few tears came down as simple tear duct effluent. In fact, I didn't know what was tickling my cheek until I brushed it away. Then the floodgates opened. I was emotionally spent.

I have since vowed to write on the weekends when my domestic partner is working and I have the house to myself. Oh, and I can't wait for next year's 3 day novel contest because although it was a painful, emotional and physically exhausting experience, I would do it again in heartbeat.