I know, dear friends , it’s been a long long time since my last blog post. Of course, last time I was writing was through the scary time in London and finding strength to get through my first covid lock down and finally bring my son safely home to Australia.
And then we quarantined for 14 days at home and remained COVID free. I finally saw my younger son after six weeks apart. The longest I’ve ever gone without seeing him. And he’s wonderful and brilliant and on the spectrum and has all kinds of, let’s call them challenges so you get the gist, but most often they’re actually gifts of his brilliant way of seeing the world.
We’ve now spent most of the year together. Because we went through my second COVID lockdown in Melbourne together. 153 days. And it worked, Melbourne and most of Australia is COVID free. Except for that bit of an outbreak in NSW right now. I’ll try to be gracious and make no unkind comments about them and us because I didn’t like it. Zipping lips right now. Back to my younger son….
He hasn’t spent a great deal of time with his father as that part of the family were going through big changes too. My sons now have a baby sister because their step mum and their dad had a baby girl.
I’m grateful that my boys have so much love in their hearts and they give it beautifully. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing. And it’s certainly been a challenging time for me. But I’ll save that for another day. Right now I just want to be a little bit brave and actually write something and be able to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Tomorrow, or actually later today because I’m writing this so late at night, will be another day to gather with people I love and care about so very much and they also happen to be my family. I know I’m so blessed to have them in my life. And I’m extra blessed because I really like them too. As people, they’re all pretty ace, most of the time.
Christmas Day wil be a day and sometimes I get really worked up over wanting everything to be perfect. This year, I’ve already realised it won’t be. I think I’ve overcooked the Turkey and I know I’ve forgotten to wrap some presents. But it will be as it will be and we’ll eat dried out roast turkey, with some extra cranberry sauce to make it a bit moist again. We’ll give silly presents that we don’t necessarily need but it’s still fun to open them. And we’ll probably eat too much and then the day will be over. So I’m making myself a promise to practice being mindful tomorrow. Not because that’s the groovy thing to do but because it really helps. Just pausing to notice the moment, helps amid the chaos.
I even had to zip back up to the shops just before they closed because the place where I’d bought my Turkey had forgotten to stuff it. My Nanna would have said I’m supposed to say season it…but it was an unstuffed turkey and I needed stuffing. Thankfully, the butcher I go to grabbed some and gave me a big container of it just before they closed. He even reminded me to take a deep breath and that everything was gonna be alright. It is, is will be. And in a moment as I drive away from the local shops, I let a couple cross to their car in front of me. Obviously I wasn’t going to run them over but I noticed that it felt nice to just slow down for a moment and let them go first. It felt a little bit Christmas-ish and that felt good.
I hope you get to have some moments to pause and feel Christmas-ish too.
From my brave moments to yours, keep it up. We’re doing a pretty good job.
Merry Christmas 🎄
Cheers
Sair