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Coffee, Quicksand, and an Angel’s Smile
Ah, coffee. That warm hug in a cup. You need a hug when you’re woken up this many times through the night. Every single night. When it feels like every time you start to dream a blissful dream, the screaming starts and jolts you awake. Last night it was about puppies, but you’d appreciate one of Freddy Krueger at this point. You just want your REM cycle.
When you have to juggle their needs with the dog’s, (resist snapping from the whining of both) try to feed everyone decent meals, work on making a scrap of change from your writing during nap times, and fight for some “you time” if you’re lucky. And this is with a partner (but far away from family). Single parents deserve a special place in heaven, just for them. A never-ending spa day.
Rejections and quicksand
And amidst all of that, you have to face the rejections. You have to watch your efforts go nowhere. All the time you’ve put into writing, applying, interviewing, studying, researching, pitching, submitting, and re-writing a million times…all the time spent fighting to make a name for yourself. It all becomes quicksand. The grains slide and scrape against one another loudly, billions of them burying themselves beneath you, and sucking…