As a StoryTerrace writer, Amelia interviews customers and turns their life stories into books. Get to know her better by reading her autobiographical anecdote below!
I'm looking forward to the penguin party. The penguin party was what sold this whole ridiculous idea in the first place—that and getting a medal with a polar bear on it. Ever since I was awarded a yellow ribbon at the Eisteddfod when I was nine, I've always been persuaded by the promise of a prize. My ribbon was for reciting a poem about a fox who ran over the hills. Whenever I see one now, which is surprisingly often in the city, I always think of how ‘he disappeared in a flash like a falling star'. I am most certainly not doing anything in a flash. But I have hugged a husky, had my photo taken with a yeti, and been cheered by the Bishop of St Paul's Cathedral, so today is probably going to be one of those 'good' days - later, when it's over, and my knees have stopped hurting.
Nine-year-old me would have no problem with any of this and would have whizzed round the whole course high fiving the huskies and dancing to the jazz band. Fifty year-old me is currently thinking this is one of my more daft ideas - run 10km around the streets of London on the coldest February Sunday since 1864. I am sure the BBC right now is saying it is very, extremely cold even for February, followed by an amber warning not to run, I lost the feeling in my fingers in Trafalgar Square, and I am sure my toes will have dropped off by Covent Garden. Surrounded by lycra and sweat, I am so far out of my comfort zone I am not sure we are on the same continent. My new normal seems to be my discomfort zone.
I wish I could remember the exact moment I decided I had had enough. When being fat and uncomfortable wasn't comfortable anymore. I wish I could tell this as some dramatic story about a life-changing diagnosis, an ugly breakup, or that some wise guru spoke to me in dream that could become the plot of the latest best-selling self-help book. Think Eat, Pray, Love, but with more Bedfordshire rain than Bali sunshine! It was much subtler than that. It was a constant gnawing sense of disappointment in myself, a feeling that I was flawed and fat and faulty. A feeling that I soothed for years with tubes of pringles, jammy dodgers, and vegan kebabs from the local takeaway. Yes, such a thing exists, and they are marvellous!
