Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.
At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.
I’m using: PAIN ~ REMORSE ~ VICTORY ~ IF ONLY
They were submitted by: Battered Hope
It’s 4:15am and my alarm is blaring in my ear. It’s a Disney’s Sleeping Beauty collectible alarm clock that my grandparents bought me as a gift. Sleepy the dwarf is yawning loudly and saying “Morning already? I’m so sleepy” over and over. I attempt to glare with my eyes closed. The sound of the dwarf’s whining is ringing in my ears, rousing me from my dreams, and slamming me back into reality. I vow, like I do every morning, to get rid of that alarm clock. I can’t even watch Snow White anymore without feeling nauseous.
I reach my arm from under my blanket and silence the alarm. I sit up in bed, shaking off the last remnants of sleep. I’ve wasted 5 minutes already. I need to leave the house in less than 10 minutes or I’ll be late again. IF ONLY I hadn’t wasted so much time wishing death on that dwarf. I jump out of bed and look around my messy room. I find a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt that I pull on over my pajamas.
I find my book bag slung over my desk chair I throw out yesterday’s calculus book to make room for some clean clothes that I will eventually wear to school later that morning. I check the clock on the footboard of Sleepy the dwarf’s bed. I have three minutes. I guess I’ll be eating cold pop tarts while I drive again.
It’s cold outside. Still dark. My car struggles to start, like it does every morning, but eventually rumbles into action. The heater doesn’t work, so there’s not much point to letting the car warm up. I grip the freezing steering wheel and head off into the mist of the morning. The leopard print fuzzy dice hanging from my rear view mirror are swaying and sparkling in the headlights of the few other cars on the road. It’s quiet and it’s cold. My fingers have gone numb. I drive with one hand on the wheel and one in my pocket trying to ease the PAIN.
I arrive at the pool at exactly 4:43am. I have to be in the water at 4:45. I run from my car to the dressing room, stripping off my sweatshirt as I go. I change quickly and arrive at the edge of the water with seconds to spare. It’s still dark in the pool. My coach and I are the only one’s there. He was clutching a very large coffee and looking full of REMORSE for what must have been a very long night that had drifted into this morning.
I place a toe in the water. I know it’s a bad idea, but I can’t help it. It’s freezing. I feel a chill run through my body. For a moment, I can’t bring myself to move any closer. Maybe the coach wont notice. He seems a little out of it this morning.
“1200 yard warm-up” He shouts at me from across the room.
I take a deep breath and jump…
This was my morning, six days a week, for all four years of high school. I was a competitive swimmer. My specialty was long distance swimming. I competed in the mile. This meant extra practices, alone, in the dark, at the crack of dawn. When I look back now, I’m not sure how I motivated myself to get out of bed every morning.
I have a theory that a person is born with only so much will power: a finite supply of discipline. I believe I used my entire allotment during those four years. I lived on teenage hormones, sugar, stubbornness and a little bit of fear. Arriving late to practice resulted in extra milage and more time spent in the water. It didn’t matter if I stayed up until midnight fighting with my boyfriend. There was no way I wasn’t answering when that dwarf called the next morning.
Sometime in my early 20s I ran out of discipline. I would regularly decide that I wanted to get back into fighting shape, but as soon as the going got tough, I slept in. I took great pleasure in looking at my new alarm, which I had purchased the second I went to college, turning it off, and going back to sleep. I would set it for ludicrous hours of the morning just so I could turn it off and go back to sleep. It was a personal VICTORY. A dream come true. And very, very addictive.
So here I sit, ten years, two kids, and more pounds than I care to list, later and I can’t make myself exercise. I borrowed on my future will power back then and now I am left with nothing but a bad shoulder and a hankering for baked goods. I was a competitive swimmer for 12 years. I was at the top of my game at 16. Now, the closest I get to exercise is pretending to be Thomas the Train in the kitchen, and I still have to get up at 4:00am on a regular basis. I can’t help but feel a little cheated.
Please check out these other great blogs who are participating in Use Your Words this week:
Baking in a Tornado
Just A Little Nutty
Battered Hope
Juicebox Confession
Black Sheep Mom
Stacy Sews and Schools
Confessions of a part time working mom
Evil Joy Speaks
Spatulas on Parade
Searching for Sanity
The Bergham’s Life Chronicles
FBX Adventures (In Parenting)
Healing Tomato
Dates 2 Diapers 2
Follow me home
I love swimming but completely understand how that kind of a schedule burned you out on exercise. I also think that chasing kids around counts as the most rewarding exercise we can do! Love that you used this challenge to let me know a little more about you, great job using your words.
Thanks 🙂 I really enjoyed challenging myself. It took me a long time to come up with something to fit my words. Put me down for March if you have a spot open.
If it is before 6 a.m. I just can’t seem to function, brr and bravo for those 4 years.
Thanks! I don’t do mornings anymore either. When the baby wakes up in the night I seriously worry I’ll drop him because my arms aren’t awake yet 😛
I can’t imagine the discipline it must have taken to swim all of those mornings. Being a teenager makes it even more amazing. I might give you a word of encouragement on the exercising front, but at the moment, I’m eating brownies and drinking a carmel macchiato….
Mmm, brownies…
Oh how I wish I had known about this challenge. It sounds fun. And the only kind of challenge I’ll agree to at this point. Your story exhausted me just reading it!
Ha ha! Karen at Baking in a Tornado does these challenges once a month. You should totally join up in March!
Oh Wow! What a killer schedule. I did a bit of the early morning thing with hockey but not nearly as long. I watch some of the competitive swimmers train at our local pool and I am in awe of their grace in the water. Over a decade of training so hard would totally make me happy to have an extra muffin, stay in my cozy pajamas in the mornings and toot my Thomas horn too. 🙂
You had to be at the pool at WHAT TIME??? The thought alone is killing me.
And I am a sportive person! walk around the block every once in a while. Plus I am running late on a regular basis, and not only do I jump to conclusions, I also have to utter them, hahahaha!
It’s past 11pm at my place so I’ll go look for a place where I can be a sleepy dwarf. Thanks for a great read!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I’m not sure how I survived…and all without coffee. It’s a mystery. Thanks for reading 🙂
I have no excuse then, because I was never in ‘fighting shape’. I mean I used to be thin, but it was just because of genetics, not because I worked out…ever! LOL So, I use the opposite excuse, I don’t work out because I was never a work out kind of person! 🙂 Awesome post and fun challenge.
Well, I have a variety of excuses to be used on any given day 😉 I collect them.
I have no excuse then, because I was never in ‘fighting shape’. I mean I used to be thin, but it was just because of genetics, not because I worked out…ever! LOL So, I use the opposite excuse, I don’t work out because I was never a work out kind of person! 🙂 Awesome post and fun challenge.
Wow! I feel like I may be seeing a little of myself in your story. You did a good job with the words you were given. I thoroughly enjoyed your story and would love to read anything you post.
Wow! I feel like I may be seeing a little of myself in your story. You did a good job with the words you were given. I thoroughly enjoyed your story and would love to read anything you post.
Loved this!! Great use of your words. I’m a fish. I love to swim. It is probably my absolute favorite physical activity. My better half was a competitive swimmer all through high school. He did amazingly well. Our daughter already shows signs of being a fish. I’m thinking she will follow in her dad’s competitive swimming strokes! Thanks so much for sharing this!!
Loved this!! Great use of your words. I’m a fish. I love to swim. It is probably my absolute favorite physical activity. My better half was a competitive swimmer all through high school. He did amazingly well. Our daughter already shows signs of being a fish. I’m thinking she will follow in her dad’s competitive swimming strokes! Thanks so much for sharing this!!
Great post! 🙂 I feel this way about my eating. I was oh-so controlled in my teens and early 20s. Watched every calorie, hardly ever binged. Now, one kid and countless pounds later, I just can’t summon that kind of self-control. Clearly I just used it all up from age 16 to 21 🙁
Great post! 🙂 I feel this way about my eating. I was oh-so controlled in my teens and early 20s. Watched every calorie, hardly ever binged. Now, one kid and countless pounds later, I just can’t summon that kind of self-control. Clearly I just used it all up from age 16 to 21 🙁
Oh your writing made me sleepy, grumpy and tired just remembering it all. I also swam competitively from 8 through collage and i absolutely hate mornings. Mornings and jumping in cold water -makes me cringe just thinking of doing it. I do still work out- late at night after the kids go to bed. I could get up and get to the local pool before everyone else gets up… But I’m not.
I often joke with my best friend, who was also a swimmer, that we no longer even like showering because we have to get wet! Great to meet another swimming survivor though! Where did you swim in college?
University of Stevens Point Wisconsin. I also hate showering because of getting wet! 🙂 Must be an old swimmer thing for sure!
I’m so glad it’s not just me 🙂
Oh your writing made me sleepy, grumpy and tired just remembering it all. I also swam competitively from 8 through collage and i absolutely hate mornings. Mornings and jumping in cold water -makes me cringe just thinking of doing it. I do still work out- late at night after the kids go to bed. I could get up and get to the local pool before everyone else gets up… But I’m not.
I often joke with my best friend, who was also a swimmer, that we no longer even like showering because we have to get wet! Great to meet another swimming survivor though! Where did you swim in college?
University of Stevens Point Wisconsin. I also hate showering because of getting wet! 🙂 Must be an old swimmer thing for sure!
I’m so glad it’s not just me 🙂