I WIN!!!!!

I got a call on Friday. A very kind business-like voice from the Alzheimer Society called to inform me my short story had won their recent writing contest. I, for ten or eleven minutes, was a winner!

I felt like a winner, smiling around my empty house with no one to tell. There was a bounce to my step, I felt thinner around the middle, my hair less grey. I'm not ever aware of the wrinkles on my face (that mirror thing again) so the wrinkles didn't bother to shift. It really was quite a lovely moment.

For those ten or eleven minutes the fact that I feel unemployable, am living in a rental house of less than acceptable standards, have a cat with what seems like bulemia, that it is only day two of grade twelve and my youngest and only daughter in residence has decided that attending a mandatory assembly was just beneath her standards of acceptable activities, just didn't matter. (Talk about your run on sentence.)

If I could manage a long enough look in the mirror, I might have smiled at myself, that knowing kind of smile, coyly accepting recognition of my incredible talent, blushing, my hand on my chest.

"Me? Oh, I'm so surprised! Well, I don't have an acceptance speech prepared, but I'd like to thank the academy ...." I might have got carried away just slightly.

This writing thing is a lonely undertaking with very few accolades, very few moments in the sunshine, but ... I do so love it. In fact, I can't help myself.

So, thank you Alzheimer's Society and The Downtown Bookstore. Thank you for the opportunity and the phone call on a day when I needed a reminder that I do some things well.