Anne's English Resume (version J)

10 Billingsgate Crescent Ajax, Ontario L1S 2R8

Cell Ph.:  (416) 458-4968 E-mail: anne.shier652@gmail.com

Anne L. Shier                        

Summary of qualifications	Secondary School Teacher  - Toronto District School Board §  full-time teacher from September 2000 to June 2015 (then retired) : §  Taught Computer Programming (Grades 10–12), Computer    Engineering / Technology (Grades 10–12), Systems Analysis and Design (OAC), Desktop and Internet Publishing (Grade 12), Business Technology (Grades 9 and 10), and Career Studies (Grade 10) §  Am well acquainted with Java, Turing and C / C++ languages §  Have a solid knowledge of computer networking technologies §  Graduated from Seneca College of A.A.&T. with a Computer Programming and Analysis 3-year (advanced) diploma (1996) and minored in English literature (5 credits with an A average) §  Achieved a certificate from Ryerson University (8 credits) in Information  Systems Management (awarded in Spring 2009) Technical Systems Analyst / Programmer Analyst §  Worked for RBC, Systems and Technology department for 2+ years as a Programmer/Analyst and Technical Systems Analyst on the mainframe
Professional experience	1996 to 1997               Seneca College – School of Computer                                      Studies - Don Mills Campus Full-time Teaching Assistant: ·               Tutored in Applied Problem Solving (Math) for 3 semesters ·               Tutored in C Programming for 2 semesters 1997 to 1999                 Seneca College – School of Computer Studies – Newnham Campus Part-Time Instructor: ·               Taught Applied Problem Solving for 2 semesters ·               Taught Introduction to Computer Systems and C Programming for 2 semesters ·               Taught Introduction to Computer Systems (including Web Page Design and Programming concepts) for 1 semester 1997 to 1998               RBC Financial Group – Systems and                                     Technology Department (Royal Direct                                     Telephone Banking System) Full-Time Programmer/Analyst: ·            Worked in Mainframe Host Group – Aug./97 to Dec./98 ·               Engaged in Y2K planning and testing  ·               Revised and tested various DB2 database programs   ·               Resolved production problems, as required ·               Set up new personnel with DB2 access, as required ·               Wrote an online DB2 program to search the Company table ·               Worked on various projects and implementations ·               Revised the online Operations Manual. 1998 to 1999               RBC Financial Group – Systems and                                    Technology Department (Indirect Lending                                     System) Full-Time Technical Systems Analyst: ·             Worked as Mainframe Host Person – Dec./98 to Nov./99: ·               Engaged in Y2K testing ·               Revised and tested various online IMS programs ·               Worked on a major implementation (a special report) ·               Resolved numerous production problems ·               Revised the online Operations Manual
Professional memberships	Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), Ontario College of Teachers (OCT), Association of Computer Studies Educators of Ontario (ACSE), and Institute of Canadian Bankers (ICB)
Skills and Accomplishments	·         Excellent English verbal and written skills as required for teaching and creative writing ·         Excellent presentation skills using MS-Office software ·         Excellent research skills used to find relevant information on the Web ·         Excellent web design skills for making personal web sites ·         Acquired knowledge of  HTML, PHP, and JavaScript for making dynamic web pages
Hobbies	Past karaoke singing, listening to music, watching TV and DVD movies, photography, traveling within Canada and abroad, reading novels and writing short stories
Interests &     activities	Being an actively-involved grandmother; maintaining and updating my own personal short story blogs, publishing 2 books of short stories:  My Short Stories (Book One) and My Short Stories (Book Two), and working at being the best teacher I could possibly be at the high school level regardless of subject area
Volunteer experience	Assistant / Head Judge in Ontario and Alberta (10 years);  Women’s Gymnastics Judging Assistant at the World University Games in Edmonton, Alberta in 1983 (Universiade’83);  St. John’s Ambulance Brigade member (3 years);  Assistant / Head Coach for 3 amateur sports clubs / teams (7-8 years in total)
Awards received	The Tom Proctor Business Communications Award for Seneca College – 1994; The School of Computer Studies Scholarship for Seneca College – 1995; Associate of the Institute of Canadian Bankers (AICB) designation – 2005

Anne Shier's Author Profile

For:  My Readers   

Date:  December 7, 2014 

Welcome to my website!

I'm Anne Shier, author of My Short Stories: Book One.

About the Author
I have been writing short stories since the mid-1990s, mostly since 2004. I've had a lot of experience with people in my past work positions, particularly in the present since my current position is a Computer Science teacher at Albert Campbell Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario.  At the time of publication of my first book, I‘d been a teacher for over 10 years full-time. I am also a very proud mother and grand-mother. I've studied psychology and sociology at university and I have a fair number of English university and college courses to my credit (due to having attended college later on in my life), as well.  As a full-time student at Seneca College, I was a part-time English tutor for two years there (1993-1995) and, in 1995 (my third year), I won Seneca College's Tom Proctor Award for Excellence in Business Communi-cations. But, what I really love is writing mostly about people, their relationships with each other, and the many things in life that affect them.  That’s the real me, following my passion.  This comes largely from my personal life experience, but is not limited to that. I live in Ajax, Ontario and I just love it there!  You can find my complete profile on www.google.com (when in Google, search for “Anne Shier”).  I also have a Facebook account, so you can find me that way, as well.  Visit my "Author" page on my author web site:  www.anneshier.com and click on the Facebook icon to see my complete Facebook profile. If you want to be my friend on Facebook, I'd love to add you!  The more, the merrier! 

      My book got a lot of media coverage in Canada and the United States in 2011. For a detailed list of all the media coverage, see my "News & Events" page and click on the links there to find out more!  

About my first book, My Short Stories: Book One

This is a collection of my short stories that I've written about people, their relationships and the common problems that they face every day:  Issues like marriage, divorce, murder, betrayal, seduction and deception, as well as a host of other life-related topics that can affect human relationships. 

About my second book, My Short Stories: Book Two (pub. Dec. 2013)

This book was written because I have an ongoing interest in people and their relationships.  I’ve developed this interest primarily because I’m a people-oriented person.  I’ve worked in industry for at least 25 years and in schools for at least 15 years of my life, including 2.5 years of part-time teaching at Seneca.  The jobs that gave me the most satisfaction and happiness, by far, were those that dealt with people, such as serving customers over the counter, dealing with suppliers over the phone, and teaching students in high school. If I had a job in which I had a considerate boss and friendly co-workers that also contributed to my job satisfaction.  Sometimes I think about what the word “career” means to me, personally, and I’ve decided that it includes all the collective experiences in life that contribute to who you are and make you a valuable person in society – someone who is happiest when contributing to the betterment of one’s fellow man.  Although I don’t like to talk about this part of my life much, I’ve been married and divorced twice.  If there’s anything this has taught me, it’s that, just because you got married, it may not last forever, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still be happy. You must find out who you really are, accept yourself and be happy with yourself before you have any hope of making anyone else, such as a significant other, happy as well.  The bottom line is that if you’re not happy with your job or your life, in general, it is probably due, at least in part, to the quality of a relationship that you have.  To this end, I want to share my extensive life experiences with my readers in a fictional way, as well as include some other experiences that I believe are valuable lessons to learn in life: nothing happens without a price to pay.  However, you can be happy if you are willing to put the time and energy into becoming the person you both need and want to be.

***********************************

A few of my short stories in this book are sequels (Part IIs) to stories that appeared in my first book “My Short Stories (Book One)”, published in 2011.  To develop a deeper understanding of any sequel, you should read the first part of the story beforehand. 

If you want an autographed copy of my soft cover book, My Short Stories:  Book Two, you only need to request one from me….I’ll very happy to sign a copy for you to keep.  And, I sincerely hope that you will enjoy reading it; after all, that’s why I wrote it.

In the future, I am planning to finish writing my third volume, a non-fiction book to be called Acrobatic & Artistic Sports & Dance and then publish and publicize it.  This book will include my own short stories as well as information on sports like acrobatic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, dance of all kinds, trampoline, acrobatic skiing, extreme sports, acrobatic events in track and field (like pole vaulting and high jump), figure skating, diving, and many other sports.  I am also planning to get a book review done for this book, since it will be an important book from my perspective and, I believe that the public will greatly enjoy reading it.

	SEASON’S GREETINGS!

 

Chapter 5G - Alexandra Orlando's Life as a Young Female Athlete - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book “Breaking Through My Limits:  An Olympian Uncovered”,

copyright 2012, by Alexandra Orlando)

As related by Ms. Orlando (prior to the 2004 Olympic Qualifiers):

I know how worried my loved ones were, even my trainer and physiotherapist, and everyone was telling how thin I had become, but not as a compliment.  But, I didn’t care, and what’s worse is that I didn’t believe them.  There were still pounds to lose, and I was still nowhere near being a size zero, which was the ultimate goal.  I went from a size six to a size two in the blink of an eye, too fast to maintain, but I was on a mission.

 

I don’t know how I even had enough energy for the amount of work I put my body through.  I can only think that it was the adrenaline of being so close to the end of the tunnel that carried me.  I picked up the worst habits you could think of, like running on Red Bull.  And, believe me, it does give you wings!  Caffeine became my middle name.  So dangerous.  So stupid.  There were days when I would look at myself in the mirror after a hot shower and write in the mirror the words I couldn’t say:

“I hate you.”

“Help.”

“I don’t want to die.”

The fuzzy silhouette of my face was barely visible as I wiped those words away, those thoughts from my head.  “Just a few more weeks,” I kept telling myself, “you’re so strong, you can do this”.  I kept packets of honey in my purse for when I felt so faint I needed a shot of sugar to keep me from dropping.  Yet it was so easy.

I was travelling all over the world on my own, never under supervision, never accountable to anyone or anything besides showing up in the gym and doing my job.  As long as I did that and competed well, no one asked questions.  I was a young woman who should have known better, but the years of emotional abuse had warped my own morality.  When I walked into World Championships, the thinnest I’d ever been, I gave it my all, and everyone noticed.  It couldn’t have been more perfect, and I had the best competition of my life.  When I qualified for the Beijing Olympic Games, I came back to life, woke up from the nightmare I was living, and opened my big eyes.

What I looked like didn’t matter anymore.  I was free.  I have never felt so alive, and gave in to all my senses.  I stayed up all night celebrating with my family and teammates who had come to Greece to watch me.  I ate and drank in excess, toasting the year and the place I had come from.  I met my best friend the next week and had ten days on the beach in Greece to enjoy myself and relax.  I came home a new woman, and was done with feeling vulnerable and scared, and now needed to concentrate on me and only me:  my health, my body, my mind and soul.  I needed to come to terms with what I had done to myself, and to start healing, and lean on my family.  It was easier to run away and disappear for weeks at a time when I was struggling than to drag them into it.  I know now that I can’t do everything on my own, and for those of you who stuck around long enough for me to realize that, you will be in my heart forever.

2008 was a year of learning and growth.  I gained back most of my weight and almost had a career-ending injury mere months before the Olympics.  The injury became my main focus, and my weight was a distant second for once.  I cared more about being able to walk than what I looked like in my bathing suit, and was eye opening for me.  After I got to the Games with my ankles both taped up so tightly that they were being held together, I knew that what I had overcome to get there meant more to me than what I looked like.  I slid into those competitive suits one last time, and walked out there with no body image issues, no regrets, and no looking back.

(End of Chapter 5 – Rock Bottom – Alexandra Orlando’s Life as a Young Female Athlete)

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

Chapter 5F - Alexandra Orlando's Life as a Young Female Athlete - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book “Breaking Through My Limits:  An Olympian Uncovered”,

copyright 2012, by Alexandra Orlando)

As related by Ms. Orlando (prior to the 2004 Olympic Qualifiers):

After the meet, we had a two-day camp in Montreal with the team that would be going to Australia.  I didn’t even participate.  We were all warming up that cold February morning when I got pulled into a “meeting”.  I walked into a room full of people with no one on my side.  If I didn’t lose weight, I would not be able to compete at the Commonwealth Games.  It was unacceptable to look the way I did and represent the country.  I now take in that sentence, slowly this time, letting the words sink in.  At the time, as an eighteen-year-old girl, I was hysterical, and couldn’t even talk.  It was one of those full body cries that turn you into a blubbering mess.  It was awful.  The last year had built up inside of me, and I just let it out.

They directed me to Jenny Craig:  an elite athlete, a national champion, having to call Jenny Craig to tell them I was fat and needed help.  I couldn’t train, I couldn’t think.  I got out of there so fast that my teammates knew exactly what had happened.  To see them feel for me so strongly gave me hope that I could get through this, maybe.

No one would actually have stopped me from competing in Australia, but they poked and prodded me at every opportunity they could get.  I went down there and won six gold medals, breaking a world record for my sport…at my size.  That moment meant more to me than anything.  What I looked like didn’t have to matter, and I wanted to show all those young girls out there that they don’t have to fit a mould to be accepted.  Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.

I had accepted that I would never look like those girls I envied, but I would do whatever I could to get into the best shape I possibly could.  This newfound plan seemed to work well for me mentally, but not physically.  I would train for four hours, then hit the elliptical and treadmill each day for at least an hour and a half, and then go back to the gym to train again.  I started working out with the greatest trainer I know, and without him, I never would have stayed sane.  He was careful to let me do my thing, but he guided me.  He was absolutely incredible, and not only was he my trainer, but my psychologist, mentor and friend.  It was a breath of fresh air coming to see him every other day during those hard couple of months.  He couldn’t care less what they told me, and thought that those people telling me I was overweight were crazy. 

I was strong, powerful and dynamic, and he saw how beautiful that was and asked me if I wanted to be the best gymnast out there, one who could turn heads with her power and strength.  I couldn’t help but smile.  So that’s exactly what we did.  When I was with him, I have never felt more healthy and athletic in my life.  He brought me back to life, and I will never be able to thank him enough for that.  When they broke me down, he picked me back up, and I would spend hour and hours at the gym with him because it felt like home. 

After our sessions, he would sit down with me and make sure I ate properly, adding some chicken or protein to my plate, trying to make me understand how important it was to fuel my body with foods that would help, not hinder my potential.  I was at my healthiest with him by my side.  You get blinded when you are surrounded with so much negativity that you don’t know how to be positive anymore, and you become unable to understand the other side.  I could hardly believe that there was any other way to look at myself.  It didn’t matter how many times my parents told me I was beautiful or my sister tried to make me see how incredible I was – nothing worked.  I could nod my head and say I understood, but I didn’t really believe it.  Inside, I was twisted and torn up, making scrapbooks of models that I wanted to look like, and diaries of my food intake and body measurements.  I would have probably kept that measuring tape under my pillow if I thought my mom wouldn’t have found it.  I was leading this secret life and shutting the rest of the world out, not letting anyone get too close to me.

As it got closer to Olympic Qualifiers, the stress I placed on myself was more than I could bear.  I was having the best training of my life and hitting personal bests in Europe and all over the world, but the pressure to be thin enough to make it to the Olympics caught up to me.  I could now count down the weeks until I walked into Greece for the World Championships, and it all of a sudden dawned on me that there was not more fooling around with this weight thing.  No more just monitoring the situation and making sure I was stable and healthy – I needed to do something drastic.  I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to do it, but it’s scary what you can put your mind to when you feel so strongly about something.  So, I did the unthinkable.

I starved myself until I could see the pounds melt off, only eating in front of people to make it seem as though everything was okay.  The headaches and stomach torture were worth it, I told myself; and the more praise I received for losing weight, the more motivated I became.  For the first time in my life, people were looking at me and smiling again, sighing in relief that I had finally cut weight.  It was as if they thought I sat at home and stuffed my face with chocolate and pizza, Italian home-cooked meals and anything else I could find, being greedy, inconsiderate and careless, like I didn’t care, like I didn’t want to the Olympics bad enough…like I chose to be fat.  I could see it on their faces.  I was in complete denial the entire year, training eight hours a day on five hundred calories or less, trying to avoid water to dehydrate myself before I competed.  It became so normal that I didn’t think anything of it.  I loved it.  No one dared to say a word, and the next, precious few months could be the end of it all.

(to be continued in Part G)

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

Chapter 5E - Alexandra Orlando's Life as a Young Female Athlete - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book “Breaking Through My Limits:  An Olympian Uncovered”,

copyright 2012, by Alexandra Orlando)

As related by Ms. Orlando (prior to the 2004 Olympic Qualifiers):

There were nights that I sat alone on the edge of the bathtub in my washroom, shaking, and holding a toothbrush in my hand, always just one step away from sticking it down my throat like so many girls I knew.  The thought that would run through my mind terrified me.  I would run the water to try and drown them out:  “How hard could it be?  You eat, then throw up and get rid of it as if it never happened.  Other girls did it.  It wasn’t abnormal.  It was something to be proud of.  The skinnier you got, the more other girls were in awe of you.”  It was sick.  I would overhear girls whining that they couldn’t do it, that they had spent hours in the bathroom trying to make their gag reflex kick in, but it just wouldn’t work.  Their bodies were holding strong.  This was a typical dinner conversation for us.  You learned to admire the girls who were deathly skinny, asking yourself why you couldn’t look like that.  But, even worse was figuring out how you were going to look like that against all odds.

Every competition that did not go well was almost always blamed on my weight.  I would be called into hotel rooms and hear that I would be nowhere, no one, if things didn’t change.  When I would miraculously lose weight, even though I didn’t perform well, the performance never mattered.  I could do no wrong then, the mistakes weren’t as big of a deal.  In the mind of a young girl, this pattern became ingrained in my head, and losing weight became the number one obstacle standing in my way.  Even the weight I lost didn’t make me happy, it was never good enough.  There was always more fat to lose, more inches to come off, and a smaller size to fit into.  I would hole myself up on the top bunk in a tiny Parisian room, earphones in, and a supply of gum that would soothe the hunger pains, and I would furiously write in my journal until my head would ache, ignoring the pile of school work I had photocopied and lugged halfway around the world with me.  This wasn’t real life, I couldn’t concentrate on school.

Those days, I would wake up in the morning and take the local bus to the gym alone, where I had to work out with a trainer who didn’t speak a word of English.  He trained French boxers, and I was just along for the ride.  My lunch break was my only alone time, and I would run across to the little convenience store from the sports complex, so mad, tired and upset, that I would buy individual packages of chocolate cake and eat them as if I hadn’t eaten in days.  The locals passing me on the street would look at me like I was crazy.  I would wolf it down as I walked back to the gym, knowing that I had to finish it or throw it away before I turned the corner and would be in sight of any potential onlookers from the gym.  I walked back into the gym with a smirk on my face, thinking I had won some secret battle in my head, and I had tricked them.  In the end, it was only putting me further into the ground, burying me deeper until I was so far over my head that nothing seemed real anymore.

I pride myself on never stepping on a scale in front of anyone, despite them desperately trying to get me to do so.  I refused to subject myself to that in front of my teammates and everyone who mattered in our sport.  I wouldn’t let them take my pride from me in that way.  They took it in other ways, but I would never offer it up willingly.  Today, I can’t look at a scale again as it brings back so many horrible memories of wishing and hoping that that little screen would flash a lower number, believing that it was lying to me.  The very thought of standing on one gives me goose bumps, and I shudder when I have to step onto one for my doctor at my annual checkup.  I don’t even look, I just let her write that number down and be done with it. 

I’ll never define myself with a number ever again.  It’s just a number, an insignificant few digits that can’t say anything about who you are, what you believe in or what you love.  It doesn’t make you any more or less of a person.  You are you, regardless of what the scale says.  Don’t let it dictate your life.  I learned how that “special” little number and the approval of others swayed my mood, my mindset, and my whole persona.  The power it held was instrumental in the choices I made and how I perceived myself.  I lost friends, potential boyfriends, even the relationship with some of my family members over what this was doing to me.  Anything I put into my mouth would start me imagining where it would be going on my body the next day.  Another piece of cheese would mean another thirty minutes on the elliptical.  Was it worth it?  That became my thought process, every minute of every day.

By the start of 2006, things hadn’t gotten any better.  I was still too heavy, and the Commonwealth Games were coming up in Australia.  These were my first, big multi-sport Games since the 2003 Pan American Games when I was just an inexperienced gymnast thrown into the spotlight.  These Games were important for my country, and I needed to come out guns blazing and take it.  During the last Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England, Canada won five gold medals out the possible six in rhythmic gymnastics, and so I had a reputation to live up to.  My whole team knew it.  We walked into the selection meet knowing that the judges were keeping in mind who should be heading Down Under, and who would make the top three that weekend.  The pressure was on, and I came out on top, but there was something different about me and everyone saw it.  I had lost my heart, my fire.  I was a robot out there going through the motions because I had to.  But, that love I had for the sport was missing.

(to be continued in Part F)

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

Chapter 5D - Alexandra Orlando's Life as a Young Female Athlete - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book “Breaking Through My Limits:  An Olympian Uncovered”,

copyright 2012, by Alexandra Orlando)

As related by Ms. Orlando (prior to the 2004 Olympic Qualifiers):

In a performance sport, you have to want to be noticed, and go out there and show them that.  In these early years of battling my weight, I lost that special part of me, that fighter.  Every day at the hotel of whatever city we happened to be in that week, Kiev, Paris or Moscow, there would be special room for everyone at the competition with buffets of food.  Any time I came close to the buffet table, the eyes would be on me.  I would scan the room seeing who was in there, how they were related to me, and if they knew our coaches or would rat me out.  I stuck with lettuce and maybe some meat.  There were days when I was so hungry that I would sneak a small piece of bread into the pocket of my Canadian tracksuit jacket, sweating over the anxiety of getting caught.

At the end of the year, my mother would find stale pieces of crumbled bread in my jackets.  Something that once seemed normal was so horrific to me now.  I would sew snacks into the lining of my suitcase should anyone ever come to my room unexpectedly.  I became so crafty that I had a whole system down of how I was going to survive.  I would starve myself for them; and it took years to admit it, but I did.  Not only did I turn to coffee, but gum too.  This should have been a dead giveaway to people, but I don’t think they wanted to believe it; and if they did know, what were they going to say?  I had wanted one thing my entire life, and my weight, one of the worst issues a teenage girl can have, was the only thing standing in my way. 

I was going to lose that weight in whatever way I could, and my teammates watched me do it.  They were the ones that really saw what happened behind those closed hotel doors, our makeshift homes.  They saw the real me.  Those girls – Yana, Carly, Stef, Ali, Demi,… – you got me through it.  You held my hand through the lowest part of my life, you wanted my dream to come true as much as I did, and you are all my beautiful sisters.

It was a vicious cycle that I seemed caught in for years.  I think back to that scared little girl alone in my head.  I was trying to be so strong, and knew that this weight issue was the reality of my sport.  I chose this life.  No one was forcing me to be there.  My parents just wanted me to be happy.  Never in my life did they push me to continue, and if anything, there were times when I’m sure they would have welcomed my retirement.  Both 2005 and 2006 were rocky years for me where I was nowhere near the shape I should’ve been in.  I couldn’t compete, and it was as if my head shut down my body.  Negativity coursed through my veins, my self-confidence plummeted, and I dreaded walking off the floor after my event to face “them”.

At this level, it’s not just you and your coach anymore.  It’s you and all the judges, gymnasts all around the world, your sport’s entire organization and the Olympic Committee in Canada – the people who are giving you money because you were supposed to be able to perform.  Every mistake you make is observed, analyzed, and thanks to technology, replayed over and over again.  Rankings and scores are flashed the second they happen, and broadcast into homes across the globe.  Chat rooms and international Web forums scrutinize every gymnast, and I could never get the courage to look.  My weight had become an international scandal.  Forget that I was one of the best rhythmic gymnasts out there, that didn’t matter.  The size of my thighs was way more important.

At my lowest, I would always be sent away for weeks at a time to compete and train in Europe, with only coaches for company.  I remember feeling like I wanted to run away and never look back.  The minute I sat down in the front seat of the loaded car, with my mom starting the very familiar drive to the airport, I turned into this miserable, sour thing.  I knew exactly what I was walking into, and I didn’t know if I was strong enough to get through it.  Behind closed doors, thousands of miles from those people who could protect me, I felt hopeless.  My life was in other hands – what I did, what I ate, where I slept.  It was all carefully planned so that I would be whipped into shape no matter what the cost.

In some small town in France outside of Paris, or some Eastern European city, I would live day in and day out in my own little dungeon in my head.  My coach would push me until I cracked, until I found that fourth wind out of pure anger and spite, wanting to show her that I wasn’t weak, that I could do it and wouldn’t give up.  Those breakthroughs, those hours of pure adrenaline and raw drive to keep my legs moving – they were the best times of my life.  The satisfaction of knowing that you could push through was better than any medal.

If I’d had a different body, I may have reached even greater heights, and I truly believe that.  My weight brought any success I had a little notch back down, with more pressure mounting up.  I dragged it around with me, felt it in my legs and my heart.  I would have nightmares of feeling paralyzed, and awake in the middle of the night in cold sweats, imagining myself so heavy that I couldn’t move, so big that no one could bear to look at me.  It’s a horrible feeling to get out of bed in the morning and have to strategically pick out what to wear to hide yourself from people.  No matter how I would create an illusion that I was thinner, if my face didn’t thin out, then no one would believe it anyway.  These are weeks of my life that I’ve blacked out from my memory, pretending like they never happened.

(to be continued in Part E)

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.