At 1:00 AM on January 29th, I set out to Cairo with my partner. There were a bunch of hiccups with the AirBnB and we were 100% positive that we both had a cold on top of my sprained ankle (I wasn’t doing anything exciting, I sprained it by wrapping it in a blanket and yanking on it when I was asleep), but we finally got settled in for the day.
The next morning, January 30th, we set off to the Ministry of Justice and got married! I’ve been with my husband since I was eighteen. Among our many challenges was the fact that an ocean stood between us, and due to military conscription, it had to be that way for twelve years. When I finally met him in person last year, I was so overcome with emotion that I just kept repeating the word, “hi.”
I’ve been asked if my husband is the inspiration behind any of my characters, and the answer is, not really. All of my characters are inspired by outside sources. There are little personality traits of my partner that I find I’ve written into some of my characters when I read through the story, but it’s never intentional. However, without him, my books wouldn’t exist. He taught me not only what it felt like to receive unconditional love, but that I was worth it as well.
After we got married we were both elated, and somehow so relaxed we could have slept for a week. We came back home a couple of days later where we both did, in fact, catch an even worse cold than what we initially had due to the change of weather and elevation from the mountains. However, we are both feeling much better after a lot of rest and relaxation. And even with all the small nuances, that was one of the best days of my life.