on the first day of April

today is Easter Sunday, a day that holds little significance for me, an active none believer, but a day that evokes memories of Easter’s past, of small children and egg hunts, of family dinners and lots of chocolate..  It is also the first of April and as such a day for pranks and jokes, who doesn’t love some foolery?

For me the beginning of a new month is giving me the motivation to start writing here again.  It has been a while.  Things have been tricky for some time and the last month particularly so.  I shan’t go into lots of details but life has not been kind to us recently.

We are staying positive, something that has taken every little bit of energy I have left.  At times recently it has been as if we are in the middle of a storm, with no umbrella and no shelter.  We are standing in the rain without a coat between us and all around the sun is shining on others.  It is not a good feeling at all and yet we are holding tight and we are still here, we might be in the rain but we still have each other.

Hubby is poorly, we know he can be fixed, the surgeons have told us so, and we believe them.  The operation has been delayed, and the stress levels are high.  On one hand we understand the pressures facing our NHS and we totally support what they are doing under such difficult pressures.  None of this is easy. On the other, more selfish hand, we are feeling the agony of waiting for phone calls to be admitted to hospital, phone calls that either don’t come or come late into the night, bringing bad news, no bed can be found.

The consequences of all of this are many.  The balance of our lives has shifted.  From being my ‘go to’ person, who helped with everything, from carrying shopping to DIY, now hubby is mostly resting.  From eating everything I can ever cook and a bit more, his appetite needs nurturing.  I am learning to do it all myself, just as I did before we met and find myself second guessing his movements and his breathing on a daily basis.  It is not comfortable to be ever watchful of someone you love, hoping and hoping that today will be a better day.

So, life is difficult, here on the hill, we have given up our house we had for the winter,  there just too many stairs made life even more difficult.  Here our one level living makes things easier.  We are thankful we have our home on the hill and our gorgeous garden, even if it is in need of some serious work. I shall get out there eventually to at least cut the grass. Our neighbours come and go, as we once did, it is nice to have them around us.  We are finding new ways to relax.  Reading, chatting, I have been baking and we have welcomed friends and family calling in to say hello.

This living in limbo, waiting for phone calls has little merit. I hope that the operation will come quickly now, then we can begin to get hubby well and our lives back on an even keel. There is little doubt this experience has changed both of us, I think things will be different from now on.

When everything you take for granted is lost to you, when you find yourselves in the midst of seemingly unsolvable problems, in fear of ill heath and without a lot of your possessions, or your support team,  well, it gives you time to evaluate life.  What is really important to us?  Where do we actually want to be?

Until now, mostly life has happened to me  I have gone with changes, made the best of things, sometimes made massive mistakes.  Yes, I have had control of my destiny, but within parameters, always making decisions based on other people, on jobs and on geography.  This last year, none of that has been possible.  We simply lost our way of life along with our home.  We have bounced between our place on the hill, the house in the town and a house share, and along the way there have been happy times alongside the worry and a constant feeling which I can describe as being the loneliness of distance.  We are still here, shaken, stirred and a bit bruised, but still here.

Today, he is feeling brighter, we go for a drive, we head away from the coast, making our way inland and soon the mountains rise up in front of us.  Hubby is loving it, he is seldom a passenger, in the last ten years he has been at the wheel of all our days out and holidays, he has driven through lovely places, with his eyes on the road.  It is my pleasure to be the driver now and to see him enjoying the views of the snow capped peaks and the green of valley below.  As we drive we chat about other journeys, about times with friends, and how lucky we are to have so many wonderful memories to look back on.  We wend our way back home, the radio, a constant companion in the car, is playing and the DJ is having some April Fool fun.  We are laughing, spirits raised as we head back to our sanctuary on the hill.

I can’t help but be grateful for the life we have made together, and even now, in the middle of the worst of times, I know there will be many more pockets of wonder to be stored in our memory banks.  Today, driving through mountains in the sunshine, laughing at the radio is such a simple thing, yet it is already a precious memory. We are thinking of the summer, when back to health, we can resume our walking, and we are already planning places to visit.

So, in the middle of tough times, there are still good times, we just have to be open to them.  Looking around me I have much to be grateful for.  Life goes on, things change, but the future is there, just around the corner, I can almost touch it.

 

 

 

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