Writing 101 – Day 6: A Character-Building Experience. Today, you’ll write about the most interesting person you’ve met in 2014. In your twist, develop and shape your portrait further in a character study.

January 18, 2014, 12:15 p.m. It was a reflection she knew so very well, yet was seeing for the first time. The fine lines like webs stretched gently from the corner of the eyes toward the temple. The loosening of the skin on the neck seemed to happen over night. The feelings were very mixed. By the calendar, it was 60 days. Sixty long, agonizing, nauseating, and freeing days. In a few short months she would begin her final year of the decade. The final stretch to 60.

The 60 days was the freedom from an addiction of over 40 years. The highly addictive action of smoking cigarettes. Don’t let anyone tell you it is a “habit.” Biting fingernails is a habit. Cracking knuckles is a habit. Cigarettes are a crippling addiction.

The lines and loosening of skin is part of a process called aging. But that day it came in to clearer focus. So did the inability to easily climb stairs, pick up a toothpick dropped on the floor, or getting in to and out of a car, chair – heck so many things. Fibromyalgia mixed with osteo-arthritis made so very much difficult to do.

It was at that moment the woman in the reflection met the woman opposite the mirror. It was the day that everything changed. The Liz of yesterday met the Liz of today.

In the few months since they met, I joined a gym and hired a trainer. I became a gentler, kinder friend to myself. I continued not to smoke – and it will be 7 months soon. I greeted my 59th birthday with a smile and greater mobility than I have known in many years. And mostly, I am no longer a prisoner in my own home.

I like this Liz!