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"Spit it out." "Just get on with it." The voice inside my head keeps goading me. But I just keep stalling. Why can’t I get the words out to tell them? We have been here for hours. We’re usually long gone by now. The kids are playing up. They’re over tired. It’s way past bedtime. I can see the frustration on my husband’s face as I suggest we have another coffee. He knows I am playing for time. I want him to do it for me - to break the ice, kick start the conversation. But I know he won’t. It has to come from me. I am vaguely aware that the children are climbing on the new sofa and that I should tell them to stop. But I am too occupied with rehearsing the pitch that I have prepared over and over again in my head. The perfect words in the perfect order. I have them ready, they are just reluctant to leave my mouth and make themselves heard. Come on! I give myself a virtual kick up the arse. You are a grown woman for goodness sake. A responsible adult. A homeowner, a wife, a mother. It’s not a lack of confidence in our decision to do this radical thing that’s holding me back. I can talk about our plans freely and with gusto to anyone else. And I have. That’s why I need to tell them now before they hear it from someone else. Why then can’t I tell my parents that we are selling our home, quitting our jobs, and taking our three children out of school to go off and travel the world? Why am I rendered speechless at sharing this exciting new chapter in our family’s life, this chance of freedom, this wonderful dream with the two people who love me most in this world and have done since the day I was born? Guilt. I feel guilty for taking their grandchildren away from them. I feel guilty that we won’t be around to help them when they need it. I feel guilty for wanting something different, something more for me and my family and I am mortified that my parents will take that to mean my upbringing wasn’t good enough. I want their approval. I am scared I won’t get it and the little girl that I once was still desperately wants to please them. My melancholy is interrupted as my husband starts to gather our bags. He’s pissed off with me. We came here to tell them and I’m letting him down. So, here I go. Perfect words, perfect order... “So in case you didn’t know we are going travelling.” That’s it. That’s what I blurt out, all in one mumbled breath, before burying my face in a tasseled cushion and blubbing my eyes out. Pathetic. Even my husband, who knows how much I have struggled with this moment, looks at me like I am crazy and asks why I am crying. I don’t really know. I seem to have taken on the role of one of my children when they are incoherently upset and can’t explain what the matter is. I usually tell them they are feeling overwhelmed. I wipe away my tears, as well as the unattractive snot leaking from my nostrils, before revealing myself to face the onslaught of questions, the objections and the neysays. But nothing. Static. I see faces of indifference and disinterest. My dad doesn’t even break his stare from watching the television. Seconds, that feel like minutes, pass. What am I - relieved? No, in truth I am gutted. The approval I so desperately sought just a few moments before is rapidly losing its significance. Right now, I’d take anything. Just some semblance of reaction to spark a conversation so I can get in all the best bits from my over-rehearsed speech. Instead, my garbled ten word announcement and resulting emotional outburst is met with heartbreaking apathy from those whose opinion, apparently whatever that may be, matters to me the most. I should just ask them what they think. But I don’t. “Come on kids”, I say, “it’s definitely time for us to go.”