There is always another bed to make, bathroom to clean, email to reply to, shopping to do. Daily life can be so oppressive. Writing the word oppressive just now makes me feel nauseous, embarrassed, ashamed to even own up to these feelings when I am so blessed. The truth is I don’t have a clue what to be oppressed, in the purest sense of the word, feels like. And yet, in my abundant, comfortable life, one can also feel caged and asphyxiated.

Life seems to be an endless thread of ‘must dos and don’ts’. From the moment I wake til the moment I go to bed, all I do is tick off things of my mental list in the hope of feeling purposeful. I guess I have always been an achiever or at least driven and productive. Five years giving my all to a degree, then a masters, then various jobs, a marriage, a home, and most of all my two kids and all the different mighty battles that come when you become a parent and you instinctively become the lioness that will go to lengths you didn’t know you could go to, to protect your cubs. Now they are adults, it’s tough figuring out where one fits in this vast universe, so inertia drives me to continue worrying about all the little petty things and not so petty that keep my world and the world of those who I love spinning. I can’t help but wonder though, is that it? Is that truly my purpose? Being alive today should be simply epic. Is it good enough to reduce a life to the ‘must dos’ and ‘dont’s’? Is it right to just settle for that? Or should I look beyond the here and the now, beyond meeting the needs of those closest to me so that I can get clarity and vision to fulfil my own hopes and needs?

Two weeks ago I was in Prague with my daughter. A very long-overdue mother and daughter trip. It was great fun just being, not thinking; just enjoying the moment, breathing, pondering on times past and dreams deferred; messing about with my first born, now 21 years old, and pretending I was 21 years old again myself; letting go of my alter controlling ego; making a total fool of myself but letting much needed laughter in in the process.

It’s been two weeks since I returned from Prague and those fleeting moments of sheer joy, freedom, contentment and inner peace have long disappeared in my memory. I have been ill with cold/flu/ Corona virus (goody!) symptoms for a week. I have now come through the worst of it, but pretty soon I find myself back on self-preservation mode, keeping my head down, doing the chores, working, cleaning, worrying…..surviving.

This world is so spectacular. Living is such a miracle and here I am, back on the saddle going nowhere. What a bloody waste!

I want my life to be full of colour, every colour, every shade, but I can’t do that if I revert to my cocoon every time the sun does not shine on the unique pigmentation that makes up my being.

Every line, whether edged on a page or on our face, tells a story, so don’t be hasty and sum another human being up by what you see but rather by what you cannot see.