In 24 hours I will have completed 40 rotations around the sun, during which I have packed quite a lot in. I have ticked off the boxes and walked the path laid, school, uni, job, marriage, kids. I have wonderful friends and family who I have dragged, been led by and danced with along the way. I am endlessly grateful for all of this and genuinely excited to see how each of these things grow in the years ahead.
As I sit in a beautiful field in East Devon in the middle of August, I can’t help but feel that the time of year reflects my time of life. There is still plenty of summer left; these days September is genuinely pretty warm but has spring finished for me now, my time of growing families and careers past? I think this fear has sat with me for longer than I realise but as I write it I am sure that’s not the case. Just as you can plant seeds all year around I feel strongly that, especially in women, now that the hard work is done I can focus on creation for me without the pressure and rules that my 20s and 30s had. I have laid the foundations, made the soil fertile, now we see what we can grow.
Without rules or guidelines this may be tricky for me, I want to write, I want to paint, I love photography, I want to dance more and spend quiet time with my family. I want to dance in fields and walk so far my legs hurt, I want to run up steep hills and zoom down the other side, I want to laugh more and harder, I want to decorate my house with colour. I want more time for long conversations, I want time for the drunk honesty that only arrives at 1 in the morning, I want tables full of food, friends and children with full hearts, stomachs and smiles. I want it all, if I am honest and I am not a go slow sort of person but I have a history of burn out. So I am hoping for some wisdom on how to walk slowly with my fast mind. There, my birthday list is complete.
I have to leave this field now with it’s buzzing crickets, rolling stream and singing birds. Today we will meet some donkeys, swim in the sea, eat a big meal and I will be grateful for it all and then tomorrow, we head home, the weather is going to turn and I will be 40.
Rewilding my family 