A letter to... home

Where would I send it to? My letter to home?

An odd question perhaps when I sit here in my house, surrounded by my possessions, so much stuff accumulated through the years making my house a family home.

… and yet …

We’ve not long returned from my parents where we celebrated Christmas with four generations of family under one roof. Anywhere your heart feels snug and wanted – that’s got to be more homely than a pile of bricks and a mountain of objects.

Every time we visit my parents there’s a point as we cross the invisible line between one county and another when my heart soars as I feel once more drawn into a homely embrace. This is where I grew up, even Andrew would remark that I changed when we got there, getting louder and more excitable.

But then as we leave and after a long drive northwards there’s a similar spot where I knew without a doubt that I have returned to another home. These familiar twists and turns of the road are the ones I drive almost daily and I smile thankful for a safe trip back to my own front door.

I know I am blessed to have two places in the world where I feel so loved and secure.

However I have reached a curious moment in time where I have lived half my life in the south east of England and half in the north east.

Pinpointing exactly where I feel I most belong is hard.

What exacerbates the confusion in my mind is that the house where I live feels less and less like a home. It has become a big burden, a place of memories with too many overwhelming responsibilities. A house too big for only three of us, not quite as cosy and warm as I want my home to be.

Oh it’s welcoming, accommodating, you’ll always get a cup of tea when you visit but that is down to the family that lives here who throw open the door. 

This is still our home because this is where we live, it is a part of us.

I remember the day we moved in, the plans we had, the work we’ve had done, the laughter, the hassles, the plaster that fell down with a loud thud, stripping woodchip from ceilings and painting every spindle.

But I am ready to move on, I need to move and establish something new.

We won’t be far away, we are tied to school and college and friends and church…

… and so I wonder, if I were to write another letter home in a couple of years’ time, just where I would send that letter to?

Once again linking with Ruth and Sabrina for the last ever Letters to... prompt!

And this is why selling my house is my number one priority for 2014, if you like it is my New Year's Resolution. Of course there is much more to it that I have written here and moving is a daunting prospect. 

Please pray for a buyer, pray that I can find somewhere new for us to live and that I have the strength to sort out all the "stuff", much of it Andrew's, and the wisdom to know what to do with it! Thanks x

A letter to start anew... or rather some excuses to postpone New Year to a more convenient date!

FACT: in 4 years, 5 weeks and 1 day I will be 50 - not that I'm counting! 

When I reach my 50th birthday my sons will be 21 and 18 and maybe they won’t need me so much.

Does it seem as if I’m wishing my life away? Sometimes I feel like I do, I wish I could enjoy the moment more and stop daydreaming of a future when I will allegedly be “free” to do whatever I please.

We celebrated Christmas at my parents, a bit of a houseful with four generations under one roof for almost a week. There were surprisingly few fallings out and a great time was had by all. 

I went to visit some old school friends while I was in the area and dipped in and out of Facebook catching up on the goings on of my online community.

On 30th December my dad was 70 – family and friends drifted in and out all day, including cousins I’ve not seen for years. We used to meet regularly for family weddings and parties but the family has grown so large we’ve come to accept we will never all get together again but Christmas is a great time for getting back in touch at least with a few.

New Year’s Eve was a quiet affair spent at my in-laws. We played the Pointless board game, watched the spectacular fireworks on TV at midnight and then I went to bed.

Oldest son stayed up with his cousins playing FIFA on the Playstation until 3am! Those days seem a distant memory to me although I later found out my parents stayed up until after 2 having their own party! 

I’m caught somewhere in the middle with all the responsibilities of being the sensible adult. I didn’t even have a drink.

However I was glad of the full night’s sleep and a clear head because yesterday I had a long and very wet drive home. The car aquaplaned a few times which I admit was scary and I am thankful we returned home safe.

But youngest son was definitely off-colour on the journey – I’m thankful he wasn’t sick in the car over the coats and Christmas presents that were on the back seat beside him. However he was sick at 4am and he’s lying on the sofa now watching Home Alone.

I too feel drained, exhausted, shivery and full of cold. And coming home to the reality of a mountain of washing and last year’s left over paperwork to sort out depresses me.

It’s doesn’t feel like a HAPPY New Year but that means things can really only get better, right?

Facebook is obviously filled with New Year’s resolution but the big question appears to be to plan or not to plan and instead go with the flow?

I’ve always been a plotter and a planner – I had a few ideas in the pipeline before I felt sick. Now I wonder what the point is and that’s probably why I recalculated the number of days until my fiftieth birthday. It’s a definite point on the horizon, far enough away that I know some things will have changed by then – at least I hope so, I really do.

I know I am too tired to think rationally, too exhausted to set realistic goals for 2014. Besides who said resolutions should be set in stone by yesterday to count?

I’ve tried before with mixed success.

And so I've decided NOT to have a new year's resolution - this in NOT to say I've stopped planning or that I'm just going with the flow but at the moment I feel too sick and tired to think about it!

New Year with all its hopes and fears is postponed – maybe until my birthday, which is after all only 5 weeks and 1 day away – FACT!

I am linking up with Ruth and Sabrina again with this post and their "Letters to..." challenge. Just click on their names to see what wonderful words they have written on the subject.

#VisDare 38 - The Chase

A chance tweet from Angela today got me looking at this week's #VisDare challenge.

"Could do with writing something - I'm not getting much else done - you've got me thinking now but no promises!"  I quickly tweeted back to her.

Anyway I opened up a word document and came up with this...

The Chase

His brother was always just out of reach, never quite close enough to catch up to. A seven minute head start made all the difference to their otherwise identical beginning.

It was like swimming against the tide. Every word of praise heaped on his twin turned into a wave pounding against him, throwing him further adrift. Each accolade lifted his brother higher while it crashed around his ears leaving him washed up in the wake.

That is until he decided to break free and walk his own path, one that took him out of his brother’s shadow.

No one seemed to understand at first, why he didn’t settle like his brother; the house, the career, the wife and inevitably the kids that followed.

When everyone else had given up hope, written him off as the black sheep of the family he finally found someone worth chasing and never looked back.

150 words

If I could travel back in time…

Yesterday I went to see About Time, the new Richard Curtis film. I always enjoy his writing and the way he tells a story, I’ve already watched Notting Hill this week on DVD and I was really looking forward to this film even without Hugh Grant in it!

I wasn’t disappointed; the film made me laugh out loud and inevitably made me cry. Any romantic movie stirs up my emotions but I can’t tell you about everything that made me cry because I don’t want to spoil the plot for anyone.

However it is not spoiling things too much to say that the movie is about a man who can travel in time, but only backwards and only within his own life.

To perform this feat all he has to stand in a dark room, usually a cupboard or a wardrobe, clench his fists tight and think about the exact moment he wants to go back to, usually with a view of changing things for the better.

It got me thinking … if I could stand in my wardrobe and clench my fists how far would I want to travel back in time? What would I want to change? And let’s pretend I only get one go at it so I have to pick my moment well.

I’ve done some pretty silly things in my time, and I’m certainly not listing them all on here. Some things I cringe over - how could I ever have been so daft? I could go back and change them, stop me from making a fool of myself but without those moments that I laugh about would I still be me? And often my friends get a good giggle out of them as well! It’s all part of growing up, even if I am still learning at 45!

No in the grand scheme of things those events are not worth going back for.

Would I instead choose to go back to the last time I saw Andrew? What if I had stayed with him that afternoon instead of going out? Could I have saved him?

Time travel really does throw up the most interesting of dilemmas. If Andrew had his heart attack, because I’m not sure much could have prevented it, but if he survived would he have been the same person?

His dad had his first heart attack at the same age but it affected him to the extent that he was never quite the same again. To be honest I’m not sure I would have coped well with a shadow of Andrew in our lives, always there but not quite how he should be.

No I think if I was going to go back in time it would have to be to a happy day, probably one of those days out we had as a family that last summer.

Perhaps the one where we dropped the camera – let’s rewind that – I’d hold that precious object so tightly and capture many more happy snaps.

Eliminating the broken camera would save the arguments that followed; youngest son wouldn’t have been as moody as we walked along blaming himself, when really it was just an accident passing the camera between us when it slipped from our fingers, I was just as much to blame for letting go of the strap.

However this was still mostly a happy day, I would just like to go back and smooth out the crinkly edges of it, make it almost more than perfect.

The boys would skim stones until it became second nature and it would remain forever a talent their dad had taught them one sunny day. OK so it’s not the greatest life skill but it’s something youngest son has never mastered and it makes me sad to watch him when he sort of tries and immediately gives up.

If I could live this day again I would laugh louder and longer, enjoying every second. I would forget about my aching back and the long car journey which had exacerbated the nagging pain. I would just enjoy it all over again and I would make time for more kisses and hand holding and talking about the completely unimportant trivial stuff – those little things that I truly miss.

I’m really not asking for much, I don’t want to change time or alter the future – oh if only I could step into the wardrobe and enter another world!

But all we can do is enjoy the here and now. I’m learning and trying, choosing JOY when I remember, counting my blessings and trying so hard not to worry about what the future holds.

The past is sadly gone but I can always relive that day in my memories, maybe it wasn’t totally perfect but it was pretty good nevertheless!