"I am at heart a marathoner. I start slow and not always with elegance. I stagger before I lurch into my stride. But once I find it, I sustain it and completely relax.

My body runs itself and my mind soars. In this mode I can go for a very long time and still have plenty of energy and speed for a strong fast finish. Many people are faster than I. At least in the beginning. But about half way through they fizzle. I overtake those who had once dismissed me as a contender. Some try to rally, but the fierce competitor in me hits the accelerator just enough to discourage them from bothering. Later they complain, “You look so relaxed–how do you do it?”

I haven’t always been so relaxed. I am, after all, a slow starter. I used to believe I had wasted a good portion of my life bumbling around, but now I realize that early experience of ineptitude taught me valuable skills. I am comfortable with being a beginner, starting slow, being wrong, making mistakes, while I find my stride. Once in stride I measure my progress against my own progress rather than measuring my performance with others. Only I can know my best possible effort and when I can be that honest with myself, I can relax even when there are others who are faster or better.

It is easy in the long run to confine one’s life to a rut. To live each day the same way to think through each day with the same thoughts. It is easy to live a minimal life. I am as susceptible to this as the next person. Which is why I have established the habit that when I hit my stride and fall into a complacent comfortable run, my mind soars and probes the edges of where I might bumble to reach. This means I try new classes, I read books on a variety of subjects I would not normally find interesting (did you know it takes seven years for a lobster to develop into a commercially viable size?) I listen more than I speak. I read more than I write. In middle age I’ve learned to throw a football and run a printing press.

The key to facing challenges is to enjoy the difficulty, to be unafraid of being thought foolish, in other words, taking pleasure in the bumble. It is to laugh at oneself and to have patience and confidence that the slow start, the stagger, the initial clumsiness and frustration will work itself out into a comfortable ability. I may dream of one day participating in the Olympics, in the meantime I appreciate the gold in my everyday run.

When I was young my self-confidence was rocked by the discovery I was less than perfect. In middle age my confidence is restored because I no longer have to battle perfection. I can live each day at a comfortable pace with a few accelerations out of the comfort zone. When others are covering their grey hair and closely monitoring the deterioration of their skin and muscle tone, I am settling into the rhythm of my body. My body runs; my mind soars and it is easy because I no longer mind it being hard." (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, September 21, 2006).

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. This column is one of a series, published under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'