A New Year

“I hope that when you count down toward midnight to welcome in a new year, you stop for a moment and remember all the things you hold dear. For life is not always about making lists of resolutions and all the things you wish to do; instead, it’s about finding gratitude in all the reasons you are, are you. So, when you start every new year and raise a glass with glee, have faith in this very simple truth: you are right where you are always meant to be.”

Courtney Peppernell, The Way Back Home

I was given a book of poetry for Christmas and have lost myself in it over the days that have followed. More than anything else, it’s prompted conversations with myself and reflections on the year that has just been.

It’s been a hard year for myself and for so many people around me. There has been loss, heartache, illness, major life changes, stress, struggles with mental health. At times it hasn’t seemed fair what some of the loveliest people I know have had to endure. But that’s not really how life works, terrible things happen to some of the kindest people, healthy people get sick and die, there is no rhyme or reason to these happenings.

Whilst sometimes it seems hard (or impossible) to see any hope in such situations, the one thing that has struck me this year is just how kind people can be. Just how much of a difference the support of the people around you can have when you feel like you’re at the bottom of the pit with not a ladder in sight.

So as we say goodbye to 2023, I am feeling ridiculously full of gratitude for the people around me that have offered such support. For those that have seen me at my worst and not walked away, for those that have offered a ladder down to me, for those that have provided a light in the dark. I’m finishing this year feeling stronger, more at peace with who I am and full of love for the people I hold most dear.

Rather than resolutions, which can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming, why not consider reaching out to those you love as the year draws to a close. Let the people around you know how much you appreciate them, how much they mean to you. What a beautiful way to see the year out. With love, with grace, with gratitude.

And for anyone reading this, I hope beyond hope, that 2024 brings peace for you, that it brings time with the people you love, that it brings adventure, that it brings the opportunity to make memories, that it brings good health, that it brings love, laughter, and joy. (Cheesy? Yes. But true.)

The only constant in life is change

When the kids were much younger, I used to do a blog post every year for their birthday. I would document the change I’d had the privilege to witness as they took another journey around the sun. I used to talk about their personalities, their likes and interests, who they were turning into. But as they got older and gained more independence and agency, it didn’t feel appropriate to continue this tradition. It seems like I should give them more privacy and respect about that. Their lives and their personalities are their stories to share, should they wish to.

But as Sophia turns 14 this week, I couldn’t help but want to reflect a little bit on the passing of time and the continual growth that you both see and experience as a parent. Having spent some time with some of my friends and family’s babies and toddlers recently, I was struck by how long ago that era of my life was. In particular, how different that stage of life was. Having three babies in 5 years meant a near-constant state of pregnancy, nappies, breastfeeding and carrying of small people for almost 8 years. That’s a good chunk of your life when you’re only 36!

The care work involved in keeping very tiny people alive is so physical, so exhausting, so constant. But back then, their needs felt much more simple. They needed food, milk, touch, sleep and love. Of course that’s not to say that it’s not an emotional rollercoaster, it’s easy to get dragged into concerns about development, to navigate meeting and connecting with other parents, to make peace with the fact that by having a child, you have fundamentally changed yourself and that you need to discover who the new version of yourself is.

But now, things seem even more complex and nuanced. They still need those physical needs meet. They still need love. But now your job as a parent also involves supporting them as they navigate friendships and relationships, gain more independence and grapple with identity issues as they discover who they are and what they’re passionate about, what lights them up. When they were young, you could more or less protect them from pain. Or at the least, most of the pain they experienced was physical and you could kiss and hug it away.

Now they will, and do, experience pain that you can’t take away. And of course they need to, it’s part of life. We need the lows of life to contrast with the joy that the highs bring. Life would be boring if we were on the same constant permanently, part of life’s beauty is the parts that bring challenge, confrontation, and pain. Through them we grow, we evolve, and we learn perspective and to appreciate what really matters in life. The breadth of emotions that we experience are what gives our lives depth and meaning. It’s what shows that we are really living.

Too often, we have allowed ourselves to believe that we can live whole lives in the absence of suffering. We are told that uniform happiness is the only desirable experience. But this in itself is a disenchantment. Without it, we are living only a surface existence, a shallow terrain.

Katherine May, Enchantment

But as a parent, learning to allow our children, as they turn into young adults, to feel this whole range of emotions without trying to shield them from all the unpleasant ones, is really hard. It’s heartbreaking watching them suffer, it’s frustrating watching them find something hard, knowing that we could offer them answers but also knowing that we need to let them figure it out themselves. It’s a tough lesson for both parent and child, but an essential one.

I think this is what the next stage of parenting holds for me. Learning how to tread the fine line between supporting them and comforting when needed and knowing when to step back and let them find their own way, having to accept that I will see them upset, I will see them hurt, and I won’t always be able to fix it. As someone who loves solutions and doesn’t like to see people upset, this is already a challenge! But I determined to make sure I give them the space to continue their own journeys. They know that I’ll always be there when they need me. But now, I need to take a few steps back and let them find their own way as they navigate the next stage of life. I owe them that.

I’m so proud of all three of them for the people they becoming. They’re so different and spark in their own way but they all have big hearts, open minds, and love to laugh! They are such a pleasure to spend time with and it’s such a privilege to be walking alongside them in life. I can’t wait to see how this next phase of our lives unfolds – I’m sure it won’t always be easy but what a gift that I get to be on this journey with them.

All About Love

In the drafts section of this website, there is a whole host of unfinished posts that I’ve started over the last few weeks and months. I’ve started to write about writers block, I’ve started to try and write a book review, I’ve tried writing a parenting post, I’ve tried writing about the link between our mental health and how that manifests in our physical bodies. I’m not sure why I can’t finish anything I’ve started at the moment but am trying again today.

Underpinning all of these half-started musings, are my thoughts after reading what I think for me, has turned out to be a seminal text in my life. ‘All about love’ by bell hooks was Kev’s favourite book. I borrowed it to read mostly as a small way to honour him and his thoughts and life. It seems like rather a big statement to say that this book has changed my life but I think I’m going to stand by that.

In it, through what I’d deem to be 13 mini essays, bell hooks explores the power of love as a force that should underpin our actions, our communities, our work ethic, our approach to ourselves and our lives. Although I already had strong thoughts about how love should influence the way we lead our lives, she took it one step further as she skilfully shows how it is the thread that needs to be woven through everything we do. Her chapter ‘Commitment: Let love be in me’ particularly struck me. In it she says

Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our other efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else. Whenever we interact with others, the love we give and receive is always necessarily conditional. Although it is not impossible, it is very difficult and rare for us to be able to extend unconditional love to others, largely because we cannot exercise control over the behaviour of someone else and we cannot predict or utterly control our responses to their actions. We can, however, exercise control over our own actions. We can give ourselves the unconditional love that is the grounding for sustained acceptance and affirmation. When we give this precious gift to ourselves, we are able to reach out to others from a place of fulfilment and not from a place of lack.

bell hooks, all about love

There was something about this that just resonated so strongly with me. How on earth can we give love to those around us, to our children, to our friends, to our romantic partners, to our colleagues, to strangers…if we don’t love ourselves?

I’d argue that loving yourself doesn’t mean that you have to like all parts of yourself. You can still acknowledge that there are things that you’d like to change about yourself whilst loving and accepting yourself as you are, in the here and now. But loving yourself means you don’t punish yourself or hold onto guilt and shame for the things that you are working on. You approach those things with care, patience and gentleness.

In her chapter on loss, she talks about the importance of living in the present and how death is a reminder that although we can makes plans for the future, we don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, next week (next month, next year…) and really, the moment we are experiencing right now is what matters the most. She quotes Thich Nhat Hanh who says “everything we seek can only be found in the present” and that “to abandon the present in order to look for things in the future is to throw away the substance and hold onto the shadow”.

As someone who has earned the nickname ‘planner Hannah’ from more than one person over her life, this also really prompted me to reevaluate my approach to planning and being present. I remember someone saying to me as a child that I spent too much energy looking ahead to the next thing at the expense of what I was experiencing at that very time.

And if this year has taught me anything, it’s taught me that lives can be completely changed in mere moments, days, weeks, months. The unexpected can happen to any of us, without any warning, throwing life as we know it out the window and leaving us in a dazed state of shock, trying to work out how to rebuild the pieces that have been scattered far and wide. Sometimes these changes can be positive or have the potential to be positive once we’ve adjusted and sometimes, they’re devastating. Regardless, inn order to rebuild, we need the love of those around us, their support, their community, their grace.

After reading this book, and ruminating, and re-reading sections, and talking to anyone who will listen about it…I’ve felt a real tangible shift in myself. It’s hard to put into words exactly what that shift is. I suppose I feel less anxious, more at peace. I feel more able to not only accept but embrace uncertainty. I feel more comfortable in my own skin, in my own head and in my own heart, than I have in years. I feel stronger and more confident in myself and my decisions. I feel more able to be joyful.

This feels like a very indulgent post to be publishing to the internet but I feel like a bit of an evangelist with this book. I think it’s really important and potentially really powerful. I think everyone should read it and that’s why I’ve decided to overcome the feeling of being self-centred to publish this. Love is infinitely powerful. It can transform individual lives and whole communities. We just need to let it in.