Somewhere In Between: Catching a Wave of Thought In This Headlong Race To The End of the Year

I have a couple of drafts of writing saved that I have been trying to post for the last few months. My usual rambling posts about thoughts and feelings, as life hurtles along in a meteor shower of work and home and exams and tiredness and business deals and more.

Every time I find I have more than a few moments of time and the accompanying necessary headspace to sit at my laptop, another week has passed stuffed with events and happenings. So when I read the drafts and half written sentences that sit in my drafts, the relevance of each has fallen away.

Which is why I am forcing out this catch up post. Son 1 is doing a practice paper upstairs after a fun few hours playing with a friend. Son 2 is lying on his bed, slowly inhabiting his no longer shared room, listening to big brother's music on headphones. And D is napping during this lazy sort of active day, with the dog on his legs keeping him immobile as he sleeps.

I reckon I can be here for at least 20 minutes without any sport blaring out from a phone, TV or radio, so here I go...

First

It is 12 years since we lost my Daddy, and with the world news punctuated by terror and brutality, I noticed that me, my siblings and mum seemed to react in the same slightly different way. We sent each other photographs that we have in our houses and drawers, of happy times, seeing Dad smile and causing us all to do the same.

Because perhaps we all felt as I do....that while I will always miss having a daddy and grandpa for my boys, and will take the time to mourn quietly during Yartzheit, or December 2nd, or both, I also know that he got to live a full life in the years that he had and was lucky to die peacefully with his family around him and surrounded by love.

So my candle on the shelf this year looked fuller and brighter and reflected how I felt

Secondly

Back in November I had our annual paediatrics appt for my boy. I had been thinking that I didn't really have that many things to update on or ask for help with. Medically we have had a blinder of a year and all problems have been dealt with quickly and cleanly. School has been interesting with a class change but we have a lot of wonderful help, and I wasn't quite sure how to make the most of the appointment.

And then.....he got picked to play in a tag rugby tournament, and I made a landmark ruling. That I would postpone his appointment, and go with him and his peers to the tournament, revelling in the fact that my boy, nine years on from the scary diagnosis, is missing school to spend a day playing tag rugby at one of his favourite places, rather than at the hospital.

Now if that isn't special and worth celebrating, I'm not sure what is.

Thirdly

I have been experiencing a sort of "gentle battering" of blue moments of late.

The effect of 'end of year tiredness', some actual life events of complexity (like work wobbles and business deals) and various first world problems (broken curtains and a newly sick-stained carpet, boxes piled from room moves and expensive vet bills and the creative activities of my days off a distant memory while we live in an 11+ household, where hormones fly up or down depending on who you are looking at)

I do know what you might be thinking. It's all very normal. And it is, of course, because I am in my 40s, I work, I am married and I have kids and a pet and family.

While I realise I can't solve the "problems", or indeed always control my wobbly emotions and sensitivities, I can just keep doing my best knowing it's all quite fine really, and we are lucky and lucky and lucky in numerous and varied ways.

So these last two pictures are a) super cute and b) here to remind me that both spiky and fluffy both have something to offer which is c) exactly just like life