Hey...Wednesday muse?

Easter is done, the children happily dispatched back to school (in summer uniform as well; nothing like little boys in short trousers and a blazer). I have had more than a glimpse of the sun and have revelled in every minute. Here she goes again about the weather! What would it be like to live in a warm climate? As someone said to me today - England doesn't have any constants in weather; each day can bring a deviation from the seasonal norm. A ten degree temperature differential, day to day, is commonplace.

via bippityboppityboo photograph by Hazel West

I am thinking a lot about me. This must be an indication that all is well with life as my thoughts have shifted from everyone else to myself. I am wondering: am I comfortable in my own skin? I think a lot about the ageing process and so want to be OK with it. I dearly want to just accept it gracefully - where can I find the wisdom to look at my younger self and not feel a tinge of regret that those days have gone? I said I would look forward and I will...but I am finding that the past is filling up behind me, like an enormous sack of memories and nostalgia and it feels somehow greater and heavier than the sack that contains the future. Does that make sense? Is this midlife? Is that what this is? Please distill wisdom...it will be gratefully received!

Today, I am delighted to have some time alone again, I am putting my home (life) back together after the what I have christened to be 'brain haze' of school holidays. Suddenly now focus is regained and I can actually get it together to make that appointment/sort that stuff/make stuff happen. This will, for sure, make me more centred by the evening as I am a simple soul, who likes nothing better than a pile of ironed clothes or soup out of a glut vegetables or a clear table top. It's the getting done that I like.

via bippityboppityboo from here

Heart on sleeve post...

We make our choices. Maybe it's something about the quiet dullness of January; all the fun of Christmas has departed leaving economising and diets. I defiantly asserted that I was to have no resolutions this year. Instead though, my mind is full of thoughts of life choices, or wonderings and musings about what I observe around me.

There have been some odd local events that have led me to consider how my age equates to some sort of life test. I am well and truly mid-30s. I see friends and acquaintances struggle with the waves of life that did not seem to cause a ripple in our 20s'. Serious illness, wayward children, schooling (where to go? Will it be 'good' enough?), aging or departed parents, the dreaded spectre of marital infidelity. It seems as I look around, that for many of my friends, the honeymoon period is over.

Isn't it typical of life's rich tapestry that when reaching some semblance of maturity,  life chooses that exact moment to throw at us its toughest lessons?

I am conscious that I am at an age where the life choices that I have made are coming home to roost. The career choice; the dogged determination with which I maintain my 'working mother' role, holding down a challenging job and wanting to be there for school pick up simultaneously. I recite the mantra to myself 'you can only do your best' by way of comfort; but is this my best?

Then there's marriage. I am very happily married. I feel the need to state that point. However I also acknowledge that the happiness comes at a price. I married a man who works very hard and is ambitious and therefore, we find, is not home much. I married a man who loves rugby and therefore spends his Saturday afternoons running round a muddy field with other men! So here I am, with two children with whom I spend 85% of my time alone.

Similarly with material possessions. The more you have the more you seem to need; yet the grasp of what one really needs in life is loosening. It is possible to feed a family of four with careful planning and adept cooking, but if you have more to spend, you do. This then ultimately leads to waste. Waste makes me troubled; throwing away food or making meals that remain uneaten.  The more worldly possessions we have the more we seem to need to update; 'get rid of the old'. But where do all of these old possessions go? Now that IKEA exists, arguably there is no need to keep hold of anything for future use as there is the ability to 'buy new'. Is the ambition that causes my husband and I to work so hard is to enable a better life misguided? I wonder this when the better life presents itself in all its glory - stressed parents, forgotten chores, mixed-up dates, lost admin (where is that much-needed bit of paperwork that was placed somewhere 'safe'?) I wonder what are we doing? Was this the plan? We spent the weekend running around like maniacs trying to get it all done in our 'days off'!


And so it dawns on me that in just a few short months I will reach my 37th birthday. Somehow as each year passes that increasing number surprises me; that reality has become true, I feel like I am forever 28 in my mind, it's just my body that betrays the fact. If not 28, then maybe 30. Yet I have to say I am happier in my own skin now than I have ever been. I recall reading articles where celebrities would say that their 30s were better than their 20s as they knew who they were, had discovered their style, they were 'at one'. I wasn't sure I believed them; being in your 20s must be better than being in your 30s? However now I am here I agree; I feel like I now know. I have learned.

What astounds me is how life proffers this learning in such an imperceptible way. As we go along there are things that teach us and mould us; is there ever an end result? Will 40 mean I am fully grown up? 45? This march of time and life fascinates me and I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering how I feel about it. What's it all for? Am I making mistakes as I go? How will I know? Will it be too late to rectify?

I am so much more self aware now than before. I am struggling to describe this without using the word mature, but when the cap fits...I do feel that I have matured into myself.

I don't expect answer to this - just putting it out there into the cosmos...in case it chimes with anyone...

via it's mary ruffle

Then, and now...

If I reflect on what I was like and how I felt at different stages of my life I am starting to think I might just be at my best right now in my mid thirties.

In my teens; I was angst-ridden, wishing I wasn't tall, wishing I was plumper, not yet sure of anything. Gangly book-reading, diary-writing, Levis 501-wearing girl of girls.

...if only I had been even a smidgen of this cool...

In my twenties; gathering pace but still not sure, 'career'-hungry but also scared at the prospect. Dressing as I thought a 'woman' should dress, but somehow totally missing the point of being 20-something (with disposable income). Found my love but struggled with his view on life vs. mine. Married young. There did not seem to be much that was 'mine'. Well-travelled but not a traveller. Became a mother at 26...

20's = weddings and babies

Then my thirties; mother of two gorgeous Boos, gained baby weight then lost the baby weight. Happy in my own skin. Running, fitter than ever. Dressing for me; sure of my style. Out the other side; over the hump. My marriage makes complete sense. He makes sense to me. Everything is mine for the taking. I sense so much choice and possibility with life now. Children growing, life expanding.

...making choices in a great outfit via prettystuff...

Although whilst this contentment I feel now may appear somewhat...smug...I must admit in all my time I have never worked as hard at life as I work now. In previous times I took a much more passive approach to life, letting it mould itself. Now I am doing the moulding and I guess that's the difference. Should life be something to work hard at? Or should you just let it happen? And what will fourties and fifties bring?!

Age can not wither her...

I can't really write extensively about ageing yet, as for me it's a process that has only just started to bed in. Clearly if I look at a photo of myself aged 25, I can really see the difference now, a little over ten years later. A lot happened in those ten years; no wonder! I am more conscious of being older rather than of aging. I have a girl who helps me with the children in school holidays; she's a lovely girl, exactly what any mother would want in a daughter. She is precisely half my age! When I see the endless possibilities of her life stretching out ahead (she is in her first year of University now) it almost takes my breath away. She has no idea how many roads there will be to go down, how many choices to be made and how much of it will either pass her by or get decided for her by some other cosmic force.

It is incredible how the age process creeps up, how the laughter lines appear, those tell-tale signs on the skin, grey hairs that need a six week colour cover-up. Certain clothes start to somehow look inappropriate, without really knowing exactly why. Skirts can seem just a touch too short. A preoccupation with comfort over style. WAIT! No, surely not...not that! Isn't the requirement that one always stays 'young at heart'? As is often the case, these things are all in the mind..

Fundamentally though I find there is something empowering about getting older, even with its cruel little reminders in my appearance. I know my mind now, I know what suits me, I have much more confidence than I did ten years ago...so that outweighs a wrinkle or two, surely?