Picking up the threads

My life has change considerably in the last year or so… The breath -holding-pause I felt after my dad died is now over and instead of waiting to see what life will become I’m feeling more able to shape what my life is going to look like and become.

Change is something that we seem ‘programmed’ to resist, I’m not sure if this is a cultural thing or part of the human psych, even when it is clear that change is for the best it is hard not to fall back into old habits or mind sets.

Part of the change for me in the last year has been letting go of people who are not right or good for me; I miss what those people were to me once, their company and how they in spired me greatly but those things had gone… There has also been lots of letting go of and questioning the true value of belongings. Over the years I’ve gathered lots of things to ‘improve my life’ which really have stood in the way of moving forward, often quite literally.

As part of that I have of course questioned my blog space and if that still feels right or has parts to bring to my life. It has been terribly neglected and although there are things to write about it has been hard to know where to start with so many months of silence. However, I do enjoy writing and the connection that it brings to others with similar interested or ambitions and I wander round constructing posts in my head with no prompting or feelings of duty or guilt  to do so and so I feel this space is still important and beneficial to who I am and am becoming.

Thanking about what’s makes me and happy ~ October 2015

Other more noticeable changes have happened too: I am now based back in the family home and smallholding which is where I use to spend most of my time and another considerable amount of time traveling back to.

My grandmother has also joined us here after becoming very unwell last year. This has had it’s own changes that have come along one of them being a realisation that it is possible to ask for outside help. For many years there have been jobs that have been half started or left undone because they are beyond our skill set or feel too large. I am sure that this mindset has come from my dad and was part of the many years that he spent unwell and slowly becoming less able.

The effects of living and caring for someone who is slowly dying, not that we realised that’s what was happening at the time, are hard to explain and something that goes unnoticed until a time when you can step back and see things from a different space. Patterns, thought processes and behaviours become habit with no real thought or understanding behind them as everything is paused, waiting for the next ‘fight scene’ (hospital dash, etc.) and the continual decline of a disappearing life.   

The outside help has come in the guys of builders who as well as making the place accessible for my grandmother are half way through replacing the roof and some of the wooden exterior of the house both of which are long over due.

And the final, biggest, life changing change is a little over three acre parcel of land, just around the corner from the house!! A piece of land of our own is something we’ve all dreamed of for many years and opens up so many possibilities. The land have been more or less left for the past ten years or so and so currently it is being ‘mob grazed’ and tidied up whilst we obvious and plan.

Day Dreamers Meadow: The view across from the far top corner November 2014