Priorites

Life takes some unexpected twists and turns. I can leave my damp and daffodil-touched hometown to find myself out in beautiful, icy and arctic conditions hundreds of miles from both home and where I set out to be.


I'm not always sure what I want until I don't get it and then I find myself feeling disappointed and it can take a while to identify the moment that there was a whisper in my heart, one which I chose to deny, and I can only hope that I will listen more closely to it next time. Or sometimes I realize that I have been wanting the impossible and the unreasonable, both from myself and from others and that peace lies in letting go.
As I reflect on the last half-term it feels as if it has been a hard place. "I don't know why I feel like this," slips from my lips very easily and is twinned with the assumption that if I don't know why I feel the way I do, I don't really. As I read Lucinda's recent post on why she loves Thursdays, I feel an envious twinge in my heart. But my life needs to be no different to hers: I too could have a 'Thursday' any day I chose. Sometimes my life feels a little out of control but I have to remind myself that no-one but me writes anything in my diary, no-one but me agrees to anything that I end up doing, no-one but me creates the pressure I feel.
I love the idea of having priorities to work to, but find that without thinking I have written down six for myself next half-term. Secretly, I know that there are other things I want to get done too: a book I want to read, painting techniques I want to practice and, oh yes!, those children I want to educate. These are not priorities but a list and one which will ultimately cause me stress and unhappiness. If I want my life to look more like a "Thursday" I actually have to decide not what I am going to do, but what I am not. I don't like it and my childish-self stamps her foot and says it's not fair, I want it all. But what I want most of all is to feel comfortable in my own skin, in my own home and to feel comfortable about the way I interact with my children and friends. So, once I've posted this, I'm taking a pen to my priority list and crossing some out. They will just have to wait.