I am sitting down at the computer for the first time in over 3 weeks. The kids took over the space over the Winter break to play minecraft and the room smells like salt and vinegar crisps and chocolate milk. I've had to push aside roughly 75 photocopies Georgia made of various items of clothing in the copier and I found Theo's shoes we looked for all throughout the break. I found the wrappers of a box of chocolates that went missing last week and sticky labels have been stuck on every item with Georgia obviously practicing her writing skills.
I feel like I should be annoyed with them, but am not because the office's neglect sort of parallels how I have felt over the last few months about work...an outward expression of the mental neglect this space has had.
2015 was a strange year. It started, like so many things do, with good the intention to "Tend" my life, my garden, my business, but within days I found myself back in my usual pattern of over work, anxiousness, careening towards (and often missing) deadlines and generally not taking care of anything, especially myself. The kids lived on a diet of beans on toast and frozen pizza and I felt like all I did was fail everyone, at everything. I lived with near-constant anxiety attacks, where even thinking the word "anxiety" would drain the blood from my hands and send my heart pounding. I had chased big business dreams for so long that I lost sight of what I really wanted.
Miraculously, change happened. I took charge, cut back over half of my work, slowed down, got help. The last few months have mostly been about learning how to run my life on something other than pure adrenaline - a long slow process about finding motivation from something other than panic and fear.
And just like that it is 2016 and for the first time in a long time, I feel tentatively hopeful that I can find the balance that I have sought for so long. Rather than ambitions that are big, this year it is the small things I want to focus on. Enjoying Theo's last few months at home before school, seeing the sea more often, cooking, growing, making, spending time with Kevin, being outside, crocheting and working with Joanne, building a sustainable business.
In many ways, I feel like all I have done is come full circle, back to doing the things I love and that sustain us, capturing the journey on the way.
I am off now to round up the kids, dogs and the last of this amazing clementine cake for a morning out, maybe at the sea, maybe in the woods.
“As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness -- just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”
-Laura Ingalls Wilder