The Long Walk Home

It’s Friday…

Time for a round up?

I hesitate to write here. What could I write? What of life in this now? What’s happened? How are we at the end of the first half of the summer term? How have I had a job for the last 6 weeks? 

I hesitate to write because I am doubtful of my heads ability to work out what is true at the moment. I’m fairly wiped out and so anything I write may have a hint of weary self pity. Let’s see eh. You can judge. 

So. Where are we? 

6 weeks of a new job. It’s going well, I think. Obviously, as I wrote two weeks into it, change is tiring, newness is exhausting, blah blah blah. It’s one thing acknowledging that change is hard and a whole other thing daily living with that change and choosing to be ok with the tiredness. Anyways. What’s still true in the midst of tiredness? Ah yes. I love getting to do what I have been made to do, I love supporting our small group leaders and knowing the wonderful value of loving them so they can love their groups well.  I love thinking about something that is not my home or family for a bit. I loved our women’s retreat and giving us all space to talk to God. I am looking forward to our weekend away and getting to know more people, and calling attention to the reality of living in our Makers world. All true. Even in the midst of tiredness and adjusting to having a line manager and colleagues and learning how to communicate again on a work level and being accountable for some of my time and other new weird things that come with you know, having a job. 

Life with the boys is a continuing whirlwind of guiding them through their emotions and trying to be patient in the midst of their weirdness. Shouty lady made a return recently, in several moments that were not my finest. I was helped by some old blog posts that reminded me of the need to be slow and patient, that 3 year olds are button pushers and also facing huge challenges as to how to deal with life each day. I was helped by the wonder of being able to say sorry and be forgiven. I returned to the mantra of ‘that can wait’, knowing that an ordered house is less important than a small boy helped through his enormous feelings.  

Both are tired from a long half term. I still trying to wrap my head around how Son1 is heading into his final half of term in reception. I’m also looking forward to hanging out with them in half term. Son1 has a good plan “Lets build dens and then watch some tv and then go back in our dens and snuggle”. I like it. He is also a reading and writing machine at the moment and I’m astounded by his development. It’s so delightful watching his brain grapple with concepts and fascinating seeing him getting to grips with a new world of words open to him at last. 

The husbandface is still ill. There isn’t much to say here that hasn’t been said before.  We do life one moment at a time.  I don’t know how to process it in any other way. It’s a long slog for him and us. We adjust to new normals and we have to stop with the plans and live with the reality we have each day. I’m not going to pretend that’s easy. It sucks. But it’s life right now and so we keep putting one foot in front of the other and holding onto hope somehow. Sometimes that’s easier than other times. We get it wrong. We say sorry. We forgive and keep on walking. We laugh at YouTube randomness, we smile at the weirdos and we hope to find a level and way of living that it is possible to be ok in.

As for me. At the end of these 6 weeks I’ve realised my self care is slipping, hence probably, the return of shouty lady. I still run but that’s the only regular thing from my need of reading, running and talking to the Maker of the world on a daily basis. I know things that would help, getting away from the phone more, accepting tiredness and not drowning it in YouTube, being kind to myself, getting hold of a good novel to grip me away from the screen (any recommends?), taking time to reference the Maker as I cycle and run around this city. Things I know I need to do. 

Life feels like it has less margins and maybe it does but also maybe I could live better to create more. Hmmm. I’ll give it a try and let you know how it’s going. 

For now I’m going to leave this coffee shop where I was a month early for a meeting and cycle home. I’m going to sit and talk to my Maker and friend and ask for the grace to love my husband, boys, friends and church. I’m going to pick up the small ones and see how their days were, make chilli and embrace a long weekend and the chance to hang out with my boys this week. 

Life goes on. 

There is grace. There is hope. There is redemption. It’s worth it. If you see me around remind me eh. 

This year is the year I turn 40. Good friends have bravely walked this path already in the last few months and in a couple of months it will be my turn.

On one level I’m totally fine with this surprising turn of events. 40 is the new 30 after all. I’ll put aside the nagging thought that I could remember my Dad’s 40th as a major event in our house. (Er Mum how did we celebrate yours?). I’m embracing this new weird sense of feeling at home with who I am and what I want from life in the next decade. The path ahead is unknown but with a few fairly known quantities. As far as I know I’ll be living in the same place with the same man, watching the same people grow and change. It’s a weirdly different place to be since my last milestone birthday when I literally had no idea what the next 10 years would hold on almost every level of life. Obviously everything could change tomorrow but with the info I have it looks like my 40s will look like a rooted kind of place.

The last couple of days I’ve been gardening, hacking down bushes, clearing out borders and planting a few seeds. Tending to the place I live, putting hands into the dirt we live upon has reminded me once more of my word of the year. Which as it happens was rooted. This was the year we were going to do slow and steady and live deep into our small bowl of green round the back of Brighton. The winter was too long though and my bones longed for outdoors and adventure and escape from the normal. Life was a whirlwind and then a crash and now a realisation that we need to be slow. Slow and steady. We do not have the energy or money for camping trips, many weekends away from home or escapades in a camper van (apart from two weeks in the summer, oh boy I need to get a grip on what I expect out of life…)

Although I long to fill my vision with sunsets from around the country and the world my gaze is being pulled back to the narrowing light outside my bedroom window.

My gaze is being pulled down to green bugs on leaves in son1’s hands, to afternoons lazing in the play tent in our back garden, to putting roots literally in the soil itself to see what might spring up.

My gaze is being pulled down to running around our streets in awe of how green this world looks, to pottering around the woods up the road after dinner with the boys, to forts on top of hills and miles and miles of rolling down land in front of me.

My gaze is being pulled to evening meals outside on our picnic bench, playing catch with the eldest, watering plants with the youngest. Tending this plot of space we inhabit together.

My gaze is being pulled to quiet weekends where we live within our means financially, emotionally and physically. Where my need of outdoors is met by the beauty in front of my eyes.

We are here. In our year of slow. I’m so slow it’s taken me until now to accept the slow. There is time enough for adventure. Right now is the time for healing space, for finding our limits and living within our means. To embrace the wonder in front of our eyes.

Once more we’ll be embarking on The Wildlife Trust’s 30 days of Wild in June. I think it will be pretty small scale, a seeking of the wild in the ordinary everyday walk of life. I shall try not to be envious of others pretty wild experiences and embrace the wild in my back garden. (Which is probably the point of the whole thing anyway)

This need to embrace the slow also affects my thoughts on turning 40. I would love us to have the means for 40 amazing experiences in my 40th year. We just don’t. I think I’m more than ok with that.

I love a good list as much as the next good list making person but this year I think I’m going to lay the list down. We shall have an afternoon tea party of music and poetry and I shall have a day off with my favourite and best on the day itself. Obviously if anyone wants to do anything fun with me aside from that I’m not going to turn them down but I think I’m going to put the list down. There is time enough for lists, life is full of adventure enough without them. I’d rather save any money we did spend on experiences to getting a camper van one day. There is time. And there is a beautiful life now to be lived in these days we bumble through.

Your correspondent. Imagining that although this might be the first post to mention and process turning 40, it surely won’t be the last…