I’m sitting here (IKEA again..) trying to work out what it is that I’m learning in this time. 

How to put into words the threads of thoughts which swirl around my mind? At times I would like Dumbledore’s Pensieve to put them all in and find connections which are held in safety, so I won’t forget. There are so many circles my brain turns and turns in and I need marker points, places in the sand, fixed points so I do not have to loop around and remember the same old thing time after time. Or maybe that’s what part of being human is all about, learning the same thing time and time again.  I want to hope that it’s with greater clarity or with different perspective but the loops I am in at the moment seem to suggest otherwise. There are some things I need to remember. 

And so I come back to my blog, the place where I put all my thoughts, probably my own Pensieve (I’m very sure I’ve used that analogy before, but what is life except recycled material?).  What is it that I am learning? 

The line jumping up and down to get put on the page is that there is no such thing as static perfection. No place where nothing ever changes and things go on forever in the same state as before. For some reason I think I crave this ideal form of life where nothing changes, a never-ending story of chats around a campfire, of sea swimming with friends, of a group of friends who live down the road and we always do the same stuff with each other, always there, dependable and secure.

I feel like I’m always chasing down this dream, trying to pin it down despite life, time, nature, bible verses and circumstances screaming at me that 

for everything there is a season, 

a time to sit around campfires and a time to pack up and go home, 

a time to live in each others pockets as people with new babies and a time to move into different life stages, 

a time to live local and immediate and a time to travel and explore, 

a time to climb mountains and a time to sit at home with a cup of tea, 

a time to unschool and a time to send them into school, 

a time to work for a church and a time to stop, 

a time to look at the view and a time to walk on, 

a time to gather your children close and a time to watch them head off to lives and places of their own, 

a time to see each other loads and a time to zoom every few months, 

a time to see one part of your family loads and a time to see the other part loads

a time to save and a time to spend

a time to be still and a time to act

a time to leap out and a time to retreat

a time to see a load of people and a time to sit on my own

There is no escaping change, different stages, different seasons. There is no one state of life which will not change, will provide me with the static perfection I seem to crave. There is no one place or set of circumstances which will give me safety unending. And so then how do I live? In fear? In frustration at my vision never working out? In terror of being alone and in a season of less if I don’t have these things I crave? 

Or is there another way? A way of acknowledging the seasons, of remembering that we are all going through these seasons, that even my mates back in Brighton are travelling through their seasons of change, that there is no static painfree holding place. There is, however, a mix of beauty and pain in every season we are in. There is no one season that contains all the good stuff of life, there are a whole load of different seasons where joy might outweigh pain or vice versa. 

And so what do I do with all this learning? I lean into the seasons of life, I relentlessly remember that I cannot have it all. I remember and remember that this is the reality of life in all it’s complex beauty and wonder. The seasons turn and turn again and I can look to the one I’m in and acknowledge the pain but also the wonder, I can accept this way of life of being human in this world. 

And also, always the bottom line of my thoughts, I can turn and notice the divine companion who journeys with me through all these seasons, who offers safety in their gaze of love, who gives me the bottom of the ocean to ground my feet on, who calls me on to know I am loved and to love deeply in whatever this day brings. 

I know that postscript isn’t for everyone but I think that it’s still mine through all these changing times.