it has been a funny old weekend, at the end of a funny old week, so that is probably apt. Having started to settle in our new home, it was the day to head back to work. Friday traffic was on my side and I soon arrived at my best friends home. We chatted a bit and soon I was off to do my job. All was well, it was just as it always is.
Saturday dawned, and my planned day of fun with my gorgeous Granddaughter was thwarted by the rain. It poured down. Undaunted we found indoor games and it was delightful. We dashed out at lunchtime and dodged the showers in the park, I love how this tiny girl is in the world. She assumes everyone will be her friend and is open and lovely to all the children she meets. Introducing herself with a smile, she reminds me so much of my other gorgeous girl at that age.
Later, work is done and I am heading home. It is quite a shock, this driving in the dark lark. It has been a long time since I have had to do it and felt quite put out. The bright headlights heading towards me were confusing, I drove slowly and eventually made it back home.
In truth I felt a little out of sorts. Seemed the difference between old and new was blurred and for a while I was unsettled again. I guess I shall get used to this.
Midnight and my gorgeous girl is on the phone. She is waiting at a Spanish airport for a dawn flight. She is in a city that has seen trouble this week, and she is very aware of the police and the guns around. Mostly she is annoyed at the lack of plugs. Don’t they realised she needs to feed her phone battery? Luckily she finds a plug in the Baby Change room. There are very few, if any, babies in the airport at 1 am so she settled in, only to be disturbed by a knock on the door. She has made herself comfortable it seemed and it took her a while to make her exit, apologising profusely and with smiles! She does make me laugh.
We talk for an hour, she updates me on her travels so far. We laugh a lot, my girl and I. I miss her when she is off doing her thing, but I am so happy she can do so. I say goodnight, and go to sleep, when I awake she is already in another country, on another adventure.
Seems to me we are all on a journey. Some of us don’t even notice the daily movement through life, instead we busy ourselves with things that probably don’t matter at all. I have been awakened to the notion of this travel, of moving from place to place and adjusting to each new situation. In time I know I shall be grateful for this experience, I truly have learned so very much. Mostly I have learned that where ever we are we are still ourselves. It is our sense of self and how we relate to the world that comes with us.
So, no matter if we are three years old in a playground in the rain, or uprooting our world for pastures new, it is all made easier if done with an open heart and a smile, we are all moving there and back again, I am just noticing it all so much more. All will be well, indeed it already is.
Just catching up with your blog after a few weeks. So sorry about your cat, on top of everything else, and it is so difficult to know you are doing the right thing, which is the most upsetting part, but it is a decision that has to be made as they cannot tell you what they want or need. I have had to make that decision twice this year, so feel for you.
On the subject of “home” I always think back to that old saying “Home is where the heart is” and it is for me so true. I have travelled about, 23 addresses since birth and my husband about 17, but however much you love a house, it’s just bricks and mortar, not even memories, as they travel with you. Your “home town” will cease to be that, it will be one of those places that you visit, especially as you have family and a job there, but you will return home afterwards, back to the place where life now is with your husband. Your children too will regard your house as the centre of the family “home”, it matters not where it is, just that you are there to provide the loving heart at its centre.
Thank you for your words
Hilary x