Category Archives: endings

Tomorrow I will begin a new life

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Tomorrow I am moving.

I am leaving behind the cottage I’ve loved for the past three years. I’m leaving my vegetable patch, with the leeks still in the ground. I’m leaving the robin who follows me around, and the log burner that has warmed us through the winters.

I am also leaving behind the partner I’ve loved for the past thirteen years. I’m leaving the thousands of conversations we’ve had, the thousands of hello and goodbye kisses. I’m leaving the holidays we’ve spent together, and all the gossamer threads that have grown between my life and his. I’m leaving our past, and our future.

I am taking Fatty and Silver with me ; )

These difficult times have finally reached their conclusion, and the time is right. The time is ripe. Nobody is at fault. All things have their season.

I hope to have a good ending with my cottage. I’m grateful for the time I’ve spent here, for the shelter it’s given me, for the good times I’ve had here. For the laughter and the tears it has contained. For all the things I’ve learnt.

I hope to have a good ending with my partner too, which will allow us to continue to love each other in a different way as our lives continue.

Think of me tomorrow, as I move my belongings from this house to the one in the picture. Not the whole house, the Manor, which belongs to my landlords. But that little door is my front door, and the window to either side and above it are my windows. My little cottage was where the servants lived, and it is cosy and small and perfect for me. It is where I will begin my new life.

Here’s to good endings, and to new beginnings.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

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I have a habit of turning ‘things that happen’ into little stories. When I drop a plate, I think ‘ah – this is telling me that I need to slow down’. Everything is a lesson. I did this a lot in my book A Year of Questions. So let me tell you a story…

Last night I was listening to birdsong on my wondrous red ishuffle when a buzzing started up in my right ear, as if a tiny bee had got trapped in the ear piece.

I’m not techincal, and so I shook it really hard. It worked. As I listened to the lack-of-buzz I thought – this could be a little story. Sometimes when something is broken we need to shake it very hard. It needs shaking so hard that it might break, but we need to shake it anyway… I was just getting to the end of this story when the ear piece started buzzing again.

OK, I thought. That wasn’t the right ending. Violent shaking is never a good solution. Hard shaking only happens when we don’t know what else to do… There – I can write my blog post now.

And THEN I thought, maybe this story isn’t about that either.

We like to think that stories have neat endings. Happy ending, sad ending. Important moral message. All of these endings are abritrary. If we stop the story at this point in our friend’s marriage, it’s a love story. Wait another few years for the divorce, and it’s a tragedy. Which is true?

Telling stories is a good thing. Listening to stories, and thinking about how they might illuminate our own situation, is a good thing. Don’t start feeling smug, though. Don’t feel ‘finished’. We never know for sure. We’re only stopping off – more of the story is always up ahead.