The Journey Begins

Pre-trip panic People ask me how I found the courage to begin my journey. I understand their curiosity. I left an established life to follow a dream. I unscrewed the nuts and bolts that secured me into society and entered the world of the vagabond.

To be honest, it wasn’t courage. It was desperation. I’m not great with numbers, but even I could do the math. At fifty-six, I could reasonably count on another twenty productive years. Twenty years? That’s not much time to develop a writing career. The last twenty had gone in a snap. If I had any hope of writing and getting published, I had to act fast.

Hello open road

After months exploring this challenge with family, friends, therapist, financial advisor and realtor, I gave myself a gift of a year. I sold my home, quit my job and got rid of all the material stuff that was holding me down. And then I hit the road. No destination. No schedule. I was headed for a midlife adventure driving around the United States. My plan was to find a new place to relocate to that would better support my writing. And, I was sure I'd work on my novel.

The first leg of my trip was a cross-country drive from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh to visit my eighty-nine year-old mother. I didn't have any easy answer when Mom kept asking, "You quit your job, you sold your home, you're doing what?" But there was an answer and it was just around the corner.

Read on: Wise Women Appear

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