Thank you, Helen. I've been enjoying your posts for a while now, but this one has moved me to respond. I am soon to travel to Japan, a place I called home 30 years ago, and have been pondering who to catch up with, knowing that meeting people from my past will be a form of time travel back to a younger self. What will I find there?
I'm very glad your aching ruminations lead you to a place of acceptance and gratitude.
I often think about this as my son has finished year 12 & is about to take off for the next stage of his life. He has made his own choice and is doing the thing he most wants to do. I had that same opportunity at the end of school & I didn’t take it. My life would have been very different if I had, but I wouldn’t have had him. It’s such a deeply engaging series of thoughts that I have to pull myself out of them & concentrate on what I do have, not what I might (or might not) have had. xx
Choices come thick and fast; there is never a moment when history ceases making itself. Yet tears for the past however "idle" are not wasted. Friendship and marriage are so bound up - of course it is the "story"of our lives..
But I love how humour frames your work too...there is a kind of freshness, a tonic irony to your internal conversations with yourself (and others). The prosaic daughter made me smile.
Thank you, Helen. I've been enjoying your posts for a while now, but this one has moved me to respond. I am soon to travel to Japan, a place I called home 30 years ago, and have been pondering who to catch up with, knowing that meeting people from my past will be a form of time travel back to a younger self. What will I find there?
I'm very glad your aching ruminations lead you to a place of acceptance and gratitude.
Take care, and thank you.
Thank you Harriet and very goof luck.
I often think about this as my son has finished year 12 & is about to take off for the next stage of his life. He has made his own choice and is doing the thing he most wants to do. I had that same opportunity at the end of school & I didn’t take it. My life would have been very different if I had, but I wouldn’t have had him. It’s such a deeply engaging series of thoughts that I have to pull myself out of them & concentrate on what I do have, not what I might (or might not) have had. xx
This is beautiful. Thank you!
Choices come thick and fast; there is never a moment when history ceases making itself. Yet tears for the past however "idle" are not wasted. Friendship and marriage are so bound up - of course it is the "story"of our lives..
But I love how humour frames your work too...there is a kind of freshness, a tonic irony to your internal conversations with yourself (and others). The prosaic daughter made me smile.
Yeh, she makes me smile too.
You're a very good writer. Or as someone once said to me after 25 years of writing, "You could be a writer!"
And, for me, even more unlikely, a yoga teacher!