“The creative adult is the child who survived.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin —

I counted 99 self-help books as I categorized the sections on the bookshelf in my bedroom. That number, 99, does not include any self-help books I have at the office, in one of my various business totes, in the car, on Audible, or that I have passed on to others. Does that make me a self-help junkie? Well, I don’t think so since I don’t feel the need to read self-help every day, nor do I have a problem working fiction into my reading mix.

I like to read and I enjoy learning. As I scan through the titles and topics of the nearly 100 books, I see help on things such as losing weight, breaking up with sugar, good leadership, self-discipline, financial peace, becoming a bad ass, living my best possible life, being successful, daring greatly, untethering my soul and having no excuses. In all of that guidance, not one of this genre on my shelf is about creativity—being creative, finding creativity or maximizing creativity.

Are you guilty of labeling yourself? I am. Any time adventure or travel or camping comes up in a conversation, I immediately label myself: “I’m not very adventurous!” “I’ve never really been a traveler.” “Camping? I’m not what you would call outdoorsy.”

It was a Sunday afternoon in May that I spent time on Lake Murray, the beautiful, 50,000-acre man-made lake right outside of Columbia, SC, where I grew up. I was lying across the back of a friend’s pontoon, staring at the water and thinking about all the days I had spent on this lake. My family had a lake house my whole life until a year before my father died in 2008. As thoughts of lake days gone by meandered through my head, I had an epiphany: I am an adventurer, and I’m outdoorsy, too!

Every June, in honor of Father’s Day, we run a feature called Men and Their Chairs, and every year I am inspired. We pick a handful of local men, ask them somewhat touchy-feely questions and always get back answers that fill our hearts and remind us that men rock!

We are living in an era of male-bashing. There are many disgruntled women out there who think all men are alike. Most sitcoms portray the male of the family as clueless or absent. And, many women insist on controlling everything and everyone these days almost to the point of emasculation epidemic proportions. Women have proven that we can do almost everything men can—have equal intelligence, excel in sports, fly to the moon, hold rank in the military and lead huge corporations with the best of them.

I have always been dependable, so much so, I won Most Dependable in the 7th grade, and every year after. I was taught that if you say you’re going to do something, you need to follow through. I never took commitment lightly. If I agreed to wear a dress to school (remember how we called our friends and we would all agree to wear dresseson the same day?), then by golly I had a dress on. If I held an office in a club, I did my duty to the fullest extent. In other words, my reputation was stellar in that people could count on me just like the sun coming up.

However, as dependable and trustworthy as I was (and still am) for others, there was one person I let down over and over again…me. I was talking to my life coach many years ago and she just came right out and said it: “Elizabeth, you have lost your reputation with yourself.”

“To a child’s ear, ‘mother’
is magic in any language..”
— Arlene Benedict —

My mom is 90 and has been living with me since February. It’s been good for both of us. Even at 90, my mother seems to be magic at times. This magic has lasted my entire life. It wasn’t a figment of my childhood adoration; her magic is always present. If anything, my adoration for my mother is stronger now than when I was a youth because I know what she’s been through. I now understand where she came from and some of the obstacles she has hurdled and defeated. I have had the great pleasure of having deep meaningful talks with my mom, and she’s told me some deep, dark secrets. My childhood adoration of her has rooted in profound respect. If anything, her magic is at an all-time high.