Blue Day

So I am chatting to The Girl on the phone and she says, "So how are you feeling?" and I say quickly, as every mother throughout history always says to her children, "I'm fine. FINE." And she says, "Well, that's good." And then she adds, my darling Girl-Woman-Child, "You know you don't have to be, don't you?"

And here I am on this glorious blue and golden Easter afternoon, quietly enjoying the freedom of not having to be fine. Instead I am being tired and fragile and grieving a little for the hopes I had for a forever-family home, and being a little wobbly and shaky about the decision to leave. Of course it is too late to change my mind, but it's never too late for a good dollop of self-doubt, is it? And in my mind's eye there are children climbing the pear tree and swinging in the hammock and shrieking in the cubby house and building castles in the sandpit. As Lucinda said in the comments on the last post, "I am sure the Germans have a word for the feeling of moving forward while still feeling sad at good byes, they are good at those words." Exactly. Whatever that word is, that is what I am feeling today. But also feeling okay about not being so completely fine as I like to let on.

So thank you, my darling girl, for your gift, which I am taking with both hands, and will try to remember to give freely in turn - the gift of making a little space in which those that we love can be sad when they need to be.