Winner

What is a winner, exactly?

We ran a 1 mile race in our community last night with the whole family.  My marathon runner husband, my two kids, and myself were signed up.  All of us have different running experiences, of course.  My son is starting to get some running endurance, while my daughter isn't quite at his pace yet.  I have always dreaded the mile run my whole life.  DREADED IT.  And my husband runs miles in his sleep.  But, we all signed up for this race together.

Winning for my son?  He thinks he won the race.  There were a 1 mile and 2 mile race going on concurrently, and he thinks he was the first 1 miler that came in.  They didn't track the 1 mile for placement, so we have no way to know really.  But, he thinks he won.  At the Kids' Dash after, they all got Winner medals, and after a while he asked, "Wait?  Why does everyone have one?  Even the ones who fell down get one?"  His definition of #winning is clearly different than mine.

I won because I finished that race.  My job was to stay with my daughter.  Yesterday I discovered that she is faster than me now.  Not much of a winner in running I guess, but I fought to keep up with her.  That's winning on the mom side.  Plus, I didn't take the chips at the end.  And, my kids got to do pull ups on a bar with service men. #winning

My daughter seemed ok with the fact that her brother beat her, even though on the way to the race she argued with us that she is the fastest runner in the family.  My husband was waiting near the finish, and my husband and son cheered for her while they ran in with her.  That was winning to her.  That, and she won a free shake on the Chick Filet prize wheel.  #winning

For my husband, this was the first race that we ran that he didn't register as a runner.  He usually runs these races in hopes for a medal.  He decided not to enter the 2 mile run.  This time, he chose to do the 1 mile walk/run so that he could run with his kids.  #Winning for dad. 

What does this have to do with my writing life, as the #btbc16 post for today is supposed to be about?  Well, I think that, as a writer, I have started to be able to see things better from other perspectives.  Writers have to choose their characters, and how they tell their story.  I could write a story about this race from all four peoples' perspectives.  Mine would be the easiest to tell, but not the best story perhaps.  As a writer, I have started to see that. I haven't mastered it, but I am on that journey as a writer. Being able to tell a story, and teach others how to tell their own stories?

That, my blog friends, is #winning.