Photo by Jack

If I could go back to 1990 to imprint one measure of wisdom on my eighteen-year-old brain, I would mark her gray matter with a big, fat STAY OUT OF DEBT branding iron.

I’d trust her to forge her own artistic path, and I’d hope she’d realize sooner than later that writing, not acting, was her purpose. I’d trust her to discover that once she likes herself, the rest would follow. I’d trust that she’d find her way back to a love lost, and that she’d become the mother her children deserve before they were old enough to know how scared she was of screwing them up because she was once that screwed up kid.

But I wouldn’t trust her with a credit card or a student loan.

Alas, there is no turning back of the clocks.

There is only forward movement towards better things.

I’ve come to believe that being debt-free is the secret ingredient an aspiring or professional creative requires to thrive and to prosper. Not only is it my personal belief, but many of my recent non-fiction reads have remarked upon the importance of fiscal responsibility for those who want to make a living creating things.

My husband was laid off last week for the third (and final) time from the same company. We filed bankruptcy a year after the first lay off, but found ourselves back in debt within the next few years, and that was with financial assistance from family for monthly living expenses.

For me, debt equaled stress, and it was mentally and creatively debilitating.

I wasn’t convinced we’d ever be able to recover financially, but I am now, even with my husband currently unemployed in this lousy economy. We paid off the majority of our debt in December thanks to an inheritance, and depending upon how long it takes for him to find new work; we will be 100% debt free come spring.

Even if we are faced with a worst-case scenario, we will recover.

So while my husband searches for a new job, I will be taking a break from contributing to anthologies to focus on novel length work.

I’ll be paying my debts and dues with sweat or cash only.

“It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.” 

-Anne Sexton

The most vivid memory I have of my father is a morbid one.

It was after dark, and I was propped up with pillows in bed—a book and pilfered flashlight in hand. My headboard faced the bedroom door and was positioned beneath a window, the moonlight pouring in waves across the Holly Hobbie doll quilt my grandmother—his mother—had sewn for me.

My father entered the room. He was still wearing his work clothes and smelled of grease and smoke. Why he wasn’t asleep and clean of the day’s work, I wasn’t sure.

He asked, “Would you like a glass of water?”

“Yes, please,” I replied.

He nodded and smiled, but before he could turn away, a shot rang from above my head and my father collapsed on the hardwood floor in a dark pool of blood.

Shocked, I was afraid to move and help my father, afraid to move and see what evil person waited outside my window with a gun. The house next door belonged to my uncle, but he would never hurt his own brother. I even wondered if my father’s final breath would wake him if the shot fired had not.

I screamed like a girl on fire.

Moments later, my father ran into my room wearing nothing but white pajamas.

He was no longer on the floor.

“What’s wrong?!”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Well, I’m not dead. I was in bed asleep, the same as you should be.” He eyed my book, raising a parental brow to my late-night crime. Confused, yet relieved, I shoved the book and flashlight aside, adjusting my covers for sleep.

“Would you like a glass of water?”

“Yes, please.” A glass of water would be nice.