Here is the me I want to be and I cannot be because I care too much about what people think of me and I am tired of being weird and I like to be as soundless and as invisible as can be.
Breathe.
Sometimes I feel consumed by tasks undone and people waiting… hungering… lonely… needy… wanting company, help with things, long chats … church communities struggling and needing what I could give to make things a bit better than they are… charities, such worthy causes needing just two pounds a month, just a donation of five pounds, just eighteen pounds that will make all the difference, just a little direct debit, just an extra pound to my purchase, just a phone call pledging whatever I can afford, just some change please lady…. The proofs to be read the book to be finished the groceries to be fetched the walls to be painted the builders to be contacted the wood to be ordered the parcels that will be delivered but at the same time the two-day visit that must be made, and the long journey and the socializing… the fluff on the floor the grime on the skirting boards the counters that could do with a wipe down the spatters on the mirror the grot stuck to the high chair and – oh God – the cat litter!
Breathe.
There is this tension between – you know I can never resolve it, never stay on that tightrope even for a second – being assertive like they tell you to and ducking the flak when I speak up and discover no, that’s aggressive and everyone is scared of me and how could I be so mean? What?
Breathe.
And then there are these people I don’t even like and I look at them and think no, it’s not that people are too busy or have forgotten God or have joined the slide into a secularizing society, it’s that you are insecure and somewhat paranoid and uninspiring and just that little bit intensely boring of course no-one wants to come to your church. And then I feel so guilty. Because how could that be true? Inside there is a child who got lost and is waiting so patiently for someone with the heart to come and search for him. Oh, God. What? Please not me.
Breathe.
And for a while – not ten minutes I mean, more like ten days or ten weeks or ten months or ten years – I would like to read and think and write and watch the world go by and not really do any housework much except the meditative kind that loves the old house into shape with a tatty cloth smelling of herbs and aromatic oils, and the silent methodical sweeping of a broom. No machines.
Breathe.
I want to sit in the garden and listen to the robin sing without the guilty nagging of endless stuff waiting to be done. And the relationships born of duty and ties that have become weary adhesions, I would like to put down; and I must not. For who is there if not me?
Breathe.
Sometimes I feel so very tired. Oddly these days, as I am moving about the house or doing what must be done in any day, an old music hall song begins to sing in my mind: ‘Show me the way to go home; I’m tired and I want to go to bed…’ This has been happening for some weeks now.
The longer I walk towards the place I yearn to be, that place where it would be quiet and homely and complete, the further away it seems to get. Was it only a mirage?
No.
Keep going.
Start again.
Start now.
Smile.
Read.
Walk.
Drink cold fresh water.
Breathe.
The world is beautiful.
And I tell you what – this has taken me by surprise – I expected when my daughter’s child was born that I might be useful and could be supportive and would be on standby to help out: but that child loves me. I had not even thought about that. A new friend. A funny, silly, hair-in-his-eyes, brimming with mischief new friend, who wants to rub noses and say ‘Six! Six! Six!’ and rejoice in the superlatively amazing skill of being able to clap his hands. I like him. We like each other. No awful burden of duty and manipulation and silently injured reproaches. We just like each other. In a difficult world, we are allies. Amidst all the tawdry debris of a middle-aged life, finding a child wants to be my friend… and finding that the children I raised have grown up witty and funny and creative and beautiful, and are also my friends… and finding that the Journey of Difficult Truth that marriage is also turns out to be a discovery of honesty and love… And that even what was lost and broken can be touched gently and restored and redeemed… And having a pond in the front garden with frogs in it and ferns and big mossy rocks emanating cool green peace… And sharing a house with my family, living simply and frugally with only ordinary things and nothing posh… And growing vegetables and flowers, and seeing the bees and the butterflies, the birds and the mice and the toads and the badgers come into the garden… And standing on the chair leaning out of the skylight in the quiet of the dawn to watch the sun rise beyond the rooftops… These things help me to breathe. It is a happy thing to be alive.