Edie finishes first year this week. She’s off to Irish college in the Gaeltacht this weekend.
Nico has been cycling to school on his own for a few weeks now.
And last week I sat in a restaurant with friends and old school mates, some of whom I hadn’t seen in 30 years since we left school.
The universe is telling me I’m getting old.
Two things to share…
The first is how much of who we are as adults was shaped long before we had any say in it.
I’ve been running workshops recently around limiting beliefs, the instructions we give ourselves, mostly without realising we’re doing it.
What we discovered in those sessions was nothing new as a concept, but very profound for those involved.
The beliefs driving their behaviour today were written in childhood. Not chosen. Just absorbed and conditioned.
So when Edie packs her bag for Irish college, I find myself wondering what’s already been written in hers.
What she’s picked up from the chaos and the love and the ordinary Tuesday evenings in our house. What I’ve given her that I’m proud of. And what else…I’ve had lots of moments I’d replay differently if I could.
It’s not guilt or regret. It’s more like an honest reckoning.
The second thing is gratitude. And I don’t mean the sanitised version of it.
I mean the kind that comes from watching people you know leave this world.
Friends and clients, people our age, people you didn’t expect. Those conversations have been happening more recently. The same quiet realisation. The people around us aren’t permanent. This ordinary week is the one we’ll later wish we’d noticed more.
The irony is that I know all of this.
And I still come home tired and cranky after a long day, not grateful for anything, and probably not the version of myself that’s helping Nico or Edie become whoever they’re going to be. I’m not beating myself up about it. But I’m not pretending it isn’t true either.
Two weeks to Morocco. I’ll have a lot of time in the mountains to sit and reflect. And to be absolutely wrecked!
We had our final kit call on Tuesday. Someone helpfully reminded us of the full extent of what we’ve signed up for. The terrain. The weather. The very basic camp conditions.
A mixture of nerves and giddiness.
Funnily enough, that’s almost exactly how I felt heading off to Irish college all those years ago!
Definitely more giddiness 37 years later. 😄