My mother answered my phone call and listened intently as I told her that I was going through another low with my writing. I read to her the first line in Leo Tolstoy’s book, Anna Karenina, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. I whined to her that I was incapable of creating beautiful prose and that my writing had no depth.

My mother has always believed in my writing and has been my guiding light as she refuels me with her positivity. I take her intellectual praise as the greatest gift since she snubs mediocrity and lives to read. This time her response to my cry for help was not what I expected, “That’s wonderful honey”. When I asked her to elaborate she explained that she was excited that I had no debt.

It is my mother, my sister and a handful of friends who keep me positive and on track. As I plow through these moments of low self esteem they do not accept failure from me encouraging me to explore my own voice and telling me to enjoy the journey and not focus on the end result. I am always so impressed by their words of undying wisdom, they are the ones who should be writing!

Ahhh the journey. Whenever somebody mentions anything to do with travel I slip into a deep reverie. I have never stayed in one place for this long without taking off somewhere, anywhere, to break up the monotony and my life is truly getting more and more monotonous as I deal with troubled finances and rejection letters.

So I think I’ll take off for the desert tomorrow, just me and the kids. We’ll explore the rocks, soak up the sun, inhale the air and reconnect and hopefully I’ll come home with a renewed interest in my writing.

OMMMM

Can’t go to the desert without getting naked!