He'll kill me for saying it but Charlie is 50 tomorrow. We grew up a generation who believed that 50 was 'old'. The age of grandparents and dodderiness. Now here we are with a four year old daughter, a 9 year old relationship, big dreams for our future and a belief in our own relevance.
No one can teach you about ageing when you're young. You don't get it until you've done it and seen really how little and how much it matters. There are days when you remember every moment, every lesson hard-learnt and every trouble. There are days when you feel truly above the pull of time and gravity and no, it ain't nuthin' but a number.
It is what it is. We are who we are. Wherever we stand in the picture.
With Evie starting school in 5 weeks, Charlie finally quitting the airline and mapping his path forward and me learning how to live life instead of attempting to steer it, this is a time of change for us as a family. It has been for months and months - years even - but suddenly it's starting to make sense to us. And that's good.
One thing is clear to me: in my drive to secure life around me and us I've gathered a lot of weight. In my body, my mind and my home. It's impossible to stand here now and not feel over-burdened.
First, thanks to the translation skills of my holistic therapist, I learnt again how to listen to my body which was telling me it needed to drop some serious ballast in the forms of stored memory, pain and adipose tissue. And hair. The hair goes tomorrow. Couch to 5K starts today. Eating when I'm hungry is already underway.
A more daunting project is clearing my stuff. Seriously. I'm a thrifter and a collector and that's fun but I take it too far. I see lovely things that I want to buy to sell and then I keep them and now my feng shui is seriously fenged up.
Now, I'm not about to leave my sanctuary here in Wiltshire for the coast of Queensland (except perhaps to visit with Evie's sister there) but I do dream of travelling lightly through my life. Of being able to sit still in my body without constantly having to shift to bear the weight of my stuff. So with thoughts of shedding skin already in my head and heart I was inspired by Bindu Wiles' most recent post. Synchronicities like this make me feel even more as if I took the right turn.
You'll maybe be glad to know I've settled on a new blog design too. Although as of tomorrow - Thursday - there'll be a rather fierce-looking woman in the profile pic. Or, someone in a balaclava.
