Life

I’ve been thinking

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Well I’m back, blogosphere! I took a couple of weeks off blogging after the 30-day challenge. This was partly because I needed to wait until I had something to say, and partly because I’ve been so damn busy. What have I been up to, I hear you ask.

My weeks are full: Mondays is my ice hockey game, Tuesday is ballroom dancing class, Wednesday is futsal, Thursday is my regular meeting, Friday is a rest day (wahoo!), Saturday is skate school, and Sunday is ice hockey practice.

Phew, I’m exhausted just looking at the list. Add to this work, running, gym, spending time with Stephen, Bronwen, Wyatt, Megan, trying to catch up with other family and friends, running a household and you can see that I have a very full life! Sometimes I just can’t do all these things and have to have a day off here and there, but in general I love my life. I love the busy-ness of it all.

On another note, my father’s wife Lorraine died on Thursday night. She had a massive heart attack and dropped dead on the bathroom floor. My father found her two hours later, and spent half an hour doing CPR waiting for the ambulance to arrive. It breaks my heart to think of how he must have felt in that 30 minutes.

My father and I are not super close, but I feel so sad for him. They were together for 10 years, and in that time he has been the happiest I’ve ever seen him. In their mid-60s, they had both just started winding down their working lives, and had big plans for traveling around in a van my father had fitted out for this purpose. I worry what will happen next.

This is going to sounds hugely cliched, but it reminds me once again to live life to the full. I don’t ever want to put my dreams on hold, thinking I have plenty of time.

That thing you’ve been thinking about getting on to that thing that will make you feel good, or make someone else smile, go and do it now!

Saturday

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I barely know where to start…

I spent a wonderful Saturday doing the usual Saturday-ish things: skate lesson, breakfast with my Frayles, more skating, and then home for lunch. This weekend we had a full contingent of add-ons for lunch. Antony, Grace, Wyatt, and Megan and her new man James were there, and me, Stephen and Bronwen as usual. It’s lovely to spend time all together and realise that once all the marriages shake down, I will have two new daughters and Stephen will gain a son, two daughters and a couple of grandkids to boot.

On Saturday night, Stephen had arranged a lovely picnic tea for us watching the sunset at my favourite place in the world – Halswell Quarry Reserve. It’s a place of peace and serenity for me. We almost didn’t make it in time to watch the setting sun. It’s a bit of a climb up to our favourite perch, and we scampered up there just as the hues were starting to shift.

We sat on ‘our’ bench seat and munched our sandwiches and watched the beauty before us. Feeling happy and grateful, I turned to Stephen and said “I’m so lucky to have you”. In response, he pulled a box out of the picnic bag, knelt in front of me (with the beautiful sunset behind him remember) and formally asked me to marry him. I said yes in amongst the kisses and tears.

And as the light turned and it got dark, we wandered back down and off to find a comfy beanbag to curl up into together to watch Top Chef.

Saturday was about as perfect as a day can be.

This and that

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It amazes me how much life can change in such a short space of time. A year and a half ago, I was living alone in an apartment in the city, I had just started a new job after just having returned from an extended jaunt abroad. I was happy-ish, but a bit lost, wondering what the heck I was going to do with my life. I had a feeling of being surplus – what was my mission, my goal?

Then blamo! Everything changed. First, I became a Nana. It didn’t materially change my life much at all, but it made me feel differently about thinking-forward. I had another whole generation of people that I could have an influence on. I started to reshape myself around the idea of being Nana to baby Wyatt. What kind of Nana was I going to be? Cool, of course. Involved. Caring, present, but not ‘in-your-face’, playful, but still strict-ish. So now I was Brigid-Bebe-Mum-Nana.

And then in February 2009 (on Valentine’s Day, in fact), after seeing the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You” I decided I needed to shake things up some more. I wanted to meet someone to share my time with…

I made a list. Someone had once told me that if I wanted something, I should think about what form I wanted it to come to me in, write down what I desired, and then put this out to the universe and wait. I had just read a book about a women who describes doing this: The Wishing Year, so I was feeling inspired. I made a list of all the characteristics I wanted in a potential mate. All the really big important things (intelligence, humour, looks, secure, doesn’t want more kids…) and all the little incidental things that seem like just a bonus, but help to sustain a relationship over time (wants to travel, likes nerdy things…). Some of the things on the list seemed silly to put there, but hey, it was a wish-list so I figured I might as well go all-out.

I met Stephen online a few days later, and we started dating in March. Without an exception, he ticks every item on my list.

To thine own self

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To thine own self be true

Almost two years ago, on Leap Day 2008, I purchased a silver bangle. I wear it every day, it jangles on my wrist and reminds me of that day and every other one between then and now. On February 29th 2008, I was lost – my life was changing and I didn’t know where I was going and it scared me. I had been lost for a long time without knowing it, and gradually I woke up to my lostness and it was painful. My solution was to buy a silver bangle and refocus myself forward. I had it inscribed with the words “to thine own self be true” to remind me that if I followed the path of my own choosing, I wouldn’t be lost again. I think about that day often when I jangle.