Tag: bloganuary 2022

My sanctuary

Solitude is my happy place. I can be alone in a crowd and be happy much like a couple newly in love that creates their own world whereever they go. I used to be anxious about it when I was younger but not anymore. I love being on my own but within limits.

Photo by Skylar Kang on Pexels.com

My favourite place to be alone is in my home. It’s my haven. It’s where I can just be. No judgement. No minding my p’s and q’s. I just am. I love pottering around the house and the garden and then curling up with a good book. Now and then I will dedicate a weekend to a series on Netflix. I have to watch a season at a time or it will bother me. I can no longer survive on one episode a week. 🙈 Netflix has spoilt me. My son is at that age where he is glued to some form of a screen at any point in time but when he needs to take a break, he knows where to find me.

I also like enjoy chilling in my little garden. There is a bush behind my house that houses, what sounds like, a lot of different birds and there are lots of beautiful butterflies that flutter about. Even though I live just above a busy main road, the bush helps drown out the sound of traffic so I am able to focus on the birds singing in the trees. I never see them. I only ever hear them. I also enjoy watching the kittens have a blast chasing whatever insect crawls or flies by. They think my irises are their own personal jungle where they get to play hide-and-seek with each other. 😂 They are the cutest. Being in the garden is also my opportunity to ground myself.

So while I can happily be alone anywhere, my favourite place is definitely my home.

As much as I love solitude, I do need my daily dose of people though.

Ageing Gracefully

At least that is what I tell myself😜. Today’s prompt requires that I write about my favourite part of myself. Well. Since I have done quite a bit of soul searching over the course of this month, I think I will stick to the physical today. In which case, my favourite part of myself right now is my grey hair!

Embracing my greys

I made a choice to embrace my greys about 2 months ago and I am so glad I did. It felt like a weight was taken off my shoulders. God decided that I would start sprouting greys in my twenties. I was having none of that. If He had blessed me with a ‘distinguished’ grey patch in the front like my mum had I might have considered it but noooo…He decided that mine would sprout up at random. So I made box colour my friend instead. (I don’t have the patience to sit in a salon every month and have my hair done). Such has been my life for the past 20 years.

In November my cousin became a gran for the 1st time. She is 4 months older than me. While my son is only 13, and will in all likelihood not make a gran for at least another 10 years (fingers crossed), it was a milestone that made me take a look in the mirror and ask myself who I was kidding. I am getting older (never old though, just older. There is a difference. 🤣) and I need to embrace it. With people dying at younger and younger ages thanks to covid, I decided it was a blessing to be the age I am and it’s time to embrace it. For me, the symbol of my ageing is my grey hair so I embraced it.

I don’t know about you but I find that once I make a decision to accept something, especially something that I have been dreading, I find that I actually like whatever it is. Does that happen to you too? It happened when I became a non-smoker. It happened when I began intermittent fasting and now when I chose to accept my hair. I no longer look at myself in the mirror in horror. Now I give myself a big broad grin every morning and blow myself a kiss because, gosh darn it, I deserve it. 🌷

I am because We are

Today’s prompt is: “Write about something that makes you feel strong”. I looked up the word in the dictionary and was amazed at all the things that strong could mean. When I hear the word, I either think of physical strength or strength of character. Since I definitely am not the strongest person physically, I’ll talk about the other definitin that comes to mind.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

People call me strong and have done so for most of my adult life simply because I have always been single and appeared to do everything for myself. Becoming a single parent and raising what I would like to call, a well-adjusted son, just amplified this idea in everyone’s mind. The truth is that I am not really that strong. I do however have a support system of friends, colleagues and family that gives me the space to do what I need to do to take care of my son and myself. My network is small but it is big enough for me. My network though is not the main reason why I appear strong.

The main reason is because I have faith in a God who always has my back. This means that I can lean on Him all the time. I will not fall. He will not fail me or my son. I am by no means a church-going somebody. I do however believe in God because I see the evidence of all the good things He has done in my life. I often point out the evidence of it to my son whenever I become aware of an example. It blows both out minds to see God in action. On of the more recent examples is that of the kittens that came into our lives. He wanted a pet so badly that God sent them to our door. He was so dissappointed when neither of the kittens seemed to want his attention initially and now George is about the clingest cat I have ever come across 😂. I was just saying to him today that he clearly has a special line to God because God is always answering his prayers.

So in a nutshell, “I am because we are”. My network of family and friends together with my God, make me look strong. Without them, I would have nothing and be nothing. I am grateful for the wonderful network that God has blessed me with.