I love me a good odd number. Like 25. So easy to add, and multiply. The typical age by which the brain becomes fully developed. The only good coin. Christmas day. My son’s birthday. And zipadeedoodah, drum roll, please, the midpoint of this midlife writing adventure. Yup, I’m standing at the top of the mountain, looking out at the view, thinking that the climb to the summit wasn’t so bad, wondering if there’s much loose rock on the way down, how my knees will handle the decent, if what’s at the bottom of the other side of this behemoth was worth all the effort. But mostly, I am wiping my brow, reapplying my lipstick, and thinking, I got this.

Except that in any good story, the midpoint is when shit gets real. It’s the point of no return; the moment when the antagonist’s threat becomes clear; when the heroine stops reacting to a problem and starts chasing it down; when a character recognizes the internal transformation necessary to achieve their goal. In The King’s Speech, it’s the moment Prince Albert realizes that he must take the throne; the point where Joan Wilder stops surviving the Columbian jungle and chooses to go after el corazón; and the skin-tingling scene in Wonder Woman when Diana charges out of the trench, emancipating herself from her disguise, and battles her way through the enemy front. It’s the instant when the stakes ramp up from big to enormous, which is why for us mere mortals slogging it out in the real world, the midpoint is often the very moment we give up.

I won’t beat around the bush; I know quitting. In fact, for a while there, I was a serial quitter. One bad case of anxiety at a high school track meet where I feigned a twisted ankle to get scratched from the 100-meter dash, and suddenly giving up became easy. My first “I can’t do this” as a quasi-adult led to another and another, like a row of tipping dominoes, until bailing turned into a fairly regular habit. I changed high schools three times, quit music conservatory mid-credential, quit jobs, quit a marriage, quit university, quit apartments, quit those damn diving lessons at the west side YMCA (and, no, I still can’t plunge headfirst into water). It wasn’t that I didn’t work hard; I have always worked hard for other people. It’s just that for a long time, I didn’t work hard for myself.

Don’t get me wrong, quitting is often necessary and even gloriously empowering when it means letting go of those nasty jobs or habits or relationships that keep us stuck. Many of the things I quit were for a good reason. However, the quitting I’m talking about is when we back down from the hard stuff that pushes us forward in life, teaches us important lessons, grows our voice, our potential, and our truth. I’m talking about those times when, despite our brain’s assurance that quitting is the only forward action, our gut tells us unequivocally that we are giving up. I felt that guttural gnaw when I choked at that track meet 35 years ago, and I feel the same discomfort now as I teeter-totter back-and-forth trying to not give up on this blog.

You see, out of nowhere, I suddenly abandoned the work. Just as I arrived at week 25—in fact, just as I finished the opening paragraph of this post–I stopped writing. I said, take a week off, girlfriend, you’re good. Look how far you’ve come. And then I pushed my hiatus to two weeks, deciding that another project required all of my attention. Two weeks rolled into three, and I began mumbling, Oh, that damn blog, what’s the point anyway? My stomach rumbled out warning signs of self-sabotage, which I politely ignored, opting instead to rationalize how I deserved an indefinite break. That old antagonist of defeat showed herself good, cutting my legs out from underneath me, filling my head with self-doubt, and letting me know that 50 essays would not be the cakewalk I imagined. Fifty essays would take grit, vulnerability, and a willingness to face and overcome my well-worn response of stepping down.

So how did I kick my nemesis to the curb, get back to the keyboard and recommit to my goal? Well, a few things happened. First, I attended a film festival where I watched my dear friend, Kelli, premiere her movie, a project that took years to accomplish and one she could have readily given up on midway. Second, I visited my doctor who confirmed that, indeed, I am middle-aged and not the 31-year old I imagine myself to be. That, like it or not, I am traversing the backside of the mountain and every footfall counts. And third, I caught some shade from my daughter. Gentle shade, but shade nonetheless. It happened last Sunday night, just as I crawled into bed and cued up an episode of Doc Martin. My daughter, no longer a small petunia at almost 16, jumped under the covers with me, snuggled up and asked (with the same gingerly care I use when approaching a sensitive subject) if she could take me shopping. I looked at her quizzically, knowing that shopping for me means shopping for her. “Why? What do you need,” I asked?

“I don’t need anything,” she replied. “I want to shop for you. Because mom– I think you’ve given up.”

She was referring to the pajamas I was wearing that had recently made a public appearance. She was referring to my penchant for diving into bed with my iPad and hiding under the covers. She was referring to the fact that, over the past few months, I have definitely stopped working hard on me.

That’s what it took. A good dose of inspiration, a belated reality check, and a firm (but compassionate) kick in the butt. Onward!