Monthly Musing – October 2024 – No plan ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Blogtober 2024 : Day 30

My husband and I have been chatting this evening, checking in with each other to see how we’re doing.  It something that we started doing during the unpleasantness of perimenopause and whatever the male equivalent is (because I don’t believe that men sail through their mid-life hormone changes without noticing), and I am very grateful for it.

We were talking about how we’re getting along, and it occurred to me during our conversation that it’s been nearly 2 months since not so small daughter went to university and I don’t have a plan.  Oh, I’ve plenty of things to do because I made sure I would stay busy, but I don’t actually have a plan of what I think my life should look like now that I am no longer a 24/7 Mum.  It’s both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time and sometimes in the same hour of the same day – 26 years of knowing where we should be (even if we didn’t always make it on time) or what we needed to do before certain deadlines, or who wouldn’t leave the house without what, and don’t forget to round up all the coats because nobody else would remember them … and now I don’t have to remember anybody else’s coat but my own.  When my husband and I went away this weekend for the family wedding, I was all ready to go with my bag in the car by the time he came in from a meeting – and that’s not happened for years!

“You’ve always been somebody’s “something”,” my husband said.  “My wife, the girls’ Mum – you’re even Mum to the dog and the cats – so it’s not surprising that it feels odd to suddenly be able to be yourself.  It’s going to take time.”

And there it is.  He has hit the nail on the head.  I don’t have a plan because I’m not quite sure who I am now that I have the space to look.  Oh, it’s not a sad thing, I’m not feeling unloved and worthless at all – it feels like a new coat that I am getting used to; not quite comfortable just yet, maybe a bit big and I’ve not found all the pockets, but I know they are there.

It’s an opportunity to reinvent myself or, perhaps a better way to put it is to find the me that is here now.  The me that quite fancies going bouldering with not so small daughter (that’s rock climbing without the rope, apparently, although that sounds risky to me), the me that would like to go out for days just to see some places I’ve never got round to seeing, the me that would like to spend more time with my far-flung friends because I don’t have to rush home to meet the school bus.  It’s a bit like having the freedom of going to university myself, but with the experience of life that comes with having a few more years than not so small daughter under my belt.

“It’s OK not to have a plan, you know,” my husband said, as he put the kettle on for another brew, and I think he’s right.  It’s both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time and sometimes in the same hour of the same day, but what a gift to be able to decide for myself what I’m going to do with myself in the years to come.  I might even manage without the rope!