Age Wont Defeat Me

It doesn’t count if you are already planning your defeat.” Bridget said as Jessica came around the bar with two glasses of wine.

“What defeat? No one’s claiming defeat – yet. But there is a possibility.”

“Well yea if you think that way,” Bridget started then took a deep breath. “Look, all I’m saying is don’t count yourself out before you even begin. And why are you even comparing yourself to anyone else, Nano is all about the story. Any words you get down are words that you didn’t have when you started.

“That is true. And from what everyone keeps telling me I am not alone in this adventure.”

“Even if you don’t do anything with it, what a perfect way to get stuff off your chest. A … 50,000-word Journal entry. It’s just one day’s entry 1 day for 30 days.” Bridget said seeing the light in her friends’ eye change.

For a moment all Jessica did was sit there and sip her wine. She was looking straight ahead but the wheels were already turning. What could she write about? She had had so many odd dreams lately, maybe something relating to those. It could explain a lot of things that were on her mind. Shoot even turn it into a story later if it all worked in that direction.

“Well?” Bridget asked not able to wait one second more.

Before she answered she looked at her friend and took another sip slowly. “I’ll do it- on one condition.”

“Ut Oh what condition?” Bridget said fearing she already know what the condition was.

“You do it with me.”

*** 

“I can’t win Nano.” She said in her high-pitched voice.

“Now who’s letting defeat rule?”

“It’s not only defeat, but de-head, de-arms and de-butt that will be planted in a chair for hours on end.

“Nice, I like what you did there.” Jessica pointed at her friend smiling.

“I don’t know Jess, I’m not much of a writer.”

“Neither am I, but you seem to think I can do this. And I think you can too.” They just looked at each other. “Look we can do it here every day and cheer each other on, we can even watch the write-ins that they have scheduled.”

Suddenly I hit Bridget. “Wait… wait wait….” Her hand went up stopping Jessica in her tracks.

“What?”

“Watch the write-ins they have scheduled. How would you know they have write-in’s scheduled? How do you even know what a write-in is? unless you-”

As hard as Jessica tried, she could no longer hold in the laughter that was about to erupt out of her.

“You were planning on doing Nano all along weren’t you?” Bridget said pretending to be annoyed with her friend.

With a smirk and shrug Jessica nodded yes. “Yea I was, but what I asked of you still holds. We do this together.”

“Heck Yea let’s do this!” Bridget said highfiving her friend and cheering.

           ****

Chapter 2

The next morning as a new day began, the alarm sounded, and sunlight began to slip in through the blinds as Jessica began to stir.

It seemed with every movement she had made she ached. Even sitting up in bed hurt from her shoulders elbows knees and feet. After a moment, she rolled onto her right side and lifted herself with her left hand.

 “Oh man,” She said trying three times to sit upright. Finally sitting up she began to realize that the thing she feared the most was happening to her. Age was taking hold and she did not like it one little bit.  But what could she do? She couldn’t reverse time or her years on earth.

Finally, with dizziness subsided she began to stand and head to the bathroom. Thankfully there were walls and furniture for her to hold on to if she needed. Well if she couldn’t think of anything to write when her friend came over, she could write about getting older. After all it was a journal one could not deny.

Now dressed and in the kitchen, she made coffee and got out her writing supplies and waited. As she waited, she began making notes on what she thought about age and life and fact that she was getting older and she had to get used to it.

And she without a doubt would not get used to aging. Most people she knew weren’t willing to just sit and let their age define them or slow them down. And deep down inside she didn’t want to be one of those people either. But there were just some days her body was betraying her.

At about 8:00 someone knocked on the door and by that time Jessica had been awake enough to have worked the kinks out and was feeling better. But she knew it would start all over the next day.  And the next and the next. Unless she did something about it. But until then her body was not going to get better. Especially in the cold winter months. She dreaded winter so.

Now reaching the door she turned the lock and pulled the heavy door open. 

“Morning,” Bridget said as Jessica stepped out of her way.

“Morning, coffee’s on help yourself.”

“Thank you, I will.”

As Bridget passed and set her purse on the chair, she looked over at Jessica and noticed how slow she was.

“You okay?”

“Yea just still waking up and  a little stiff. I must have slept wrong. But I’ll be fine once I start moving around. And writing.” Jessica took a deep breath and changed the subject.

 “How are you this morning?”

“Ready to write,” She answered as she poured her coffee and stood in the kitchen talking for a moment.

“Well as you can see the table is cleaned off and supplies are nearby.” She said as they walked back to the table. “However, I still don’t really know what to write, so I’m starting with morning pages and see where that goes.”

“That is a start. And I bet once you get started, a story will emerge somewhere in the pages you write.”

“Yea I thought so, how about you, what are you going to be working on?”  Jessica asked as they began to sit and get their writing material ready.

“I found some prompts in a file on my bookshelf,” she said referring to her computer. “So, I will be working on a few short stories, and see where that gets me.

“Cool.” Jessica said as she opened a fresh sheet and began writing out a title, either Nano Attempt or Age Won’t Defeat Me. (Not sure which one yet.) She wrote in parenthesis just under the titles.

“Okay my document ready, is yours?” Bridget said sitting up and looking at Jess.

“Yea, I’m ready,” Jessica said back “are we going to set a timer and see how many words we can get in short bursts”

“Yea why not.” Bridget said nodding in agreement.  “Then we can maybe at some point we can add some prompts and such.”

“Yea why not. But first can we get in the rhythm of writing?”

“Oh of course, I fully agree.”

And with that Jessica pulled out her phone and set a timer so they would know how long to write for. “Are you ready?”

“Yea let’s get started. I’ll set it for 5 minutes our first time and see how that goes.”

And with that the timer was set and they began typing.

 Jessica just sat there for a moment exercising her knee when she began to think of what she wanted to write. Then suddenly her fingers began to move over the keyboard and she began flying as her first sprint began.

‘They say age is but a number, or I never thought I’d live to be this age, or act your age, or even coming of age.’ But I say ‘age isn’t going to define me. I will be whatever age I want to be. And I want to be young again. But not young as in going back in time, and redo life per say, although that would be nice, no what I’m talking about is taking care of my body by eating right and exercising on a regular basis. I really never put eating right and exercise at the top of my list as a kid. But looking back I wish I had. Even now I wish I had the mind set to get my butt out of a chair and do something that will make me feel better. After all there are so many things that can be done and at any age. The important thing is to just begin something, but please check with your doctor so you don’t get hurt and be worse off than you may be now.”

“And stop,” Bridget said when the alarm went off and Jessica continued writing.

“Oh yea right, oops.”

“Must be better than you thought,” Bridget said.

“Yea I think so, it’s just kind of a nonfiction piece. Talking to others and giving myself and them – future readers - a pep talk.” Jessica began. Then added. “I don’t want my life or the things that are holding me back to defeat me. Nor do I want the daunting task of writing 50,000 words to defeat me either.”

 Then she smiled, “So with that thought, are you ready for another sprint?”

“Absolutely.” Bridget said smiling back. “Let’s crush Nano.”

“Yea!” And with that the timer was reset and they began to write for another timed sprint. 10 minutes this time.

The End