Scattered Ramblings

Today I toyed with a couple of ideas I have for my third decade celebrations which are in the not-too-distant future. Thirty! Wow! Who would have thunk? While musing over this upcoming anniversary, I was reminded of my recent wedding anniversary (our ninth - copper, I'm told), and had a pang of guilt because, on the actual day, I was off galavanting in far off deserts while my darling husband was left home alone with the children. To deal with the flood of shame, I sat down and let the feeling pass. And while I was innocently reminiscing over years past, I seem to have been hit by a great big slab of perspective. I realised that I can very nearly divide my life into three equal parts. And each third of my life seems to be quite clearly packaged and labelled in the filing cabinet of my mind.

The first ten years I recall in bright shining images. I was happy. I remember piano lessons, ballet, being carefree. It was easy, fun. There was swimming, safety, puppies and kittens, roller-skates, searching for the man in the moon, pink candy floss, protection. I remember school plays and Christmas trees packed with prezzies. I shone. I excelled. I sang and danced my way from one birthday to the next. I had an easy abandon to the cares of the world. I was blossoming.

The middle third of my life is like a confused memory of a bad dream. I can't seem to remember things clearly, and the things I do remember are warped and strained like the view from a carnival roundabout going too fast. I feel like I'm trying to remember a nightmare in the groggy-head state of early morning. I can't always place the faces or the places. It's a blur. A somewhat disastrous recollection of survival, adolescence, panic, desperately trying to hang on, bunnies being eaten in the middle of the night by neighbourhood cats, homelessness, keeping it together, loneliness, moving, dysfunction, skipping gym class, fighting, falling into a deep hole, moving again, bunking school, DEBT, crying, losing, sinking, moving again, darkness, pimples, and a whole big dose of melancholy.

The most recent third has been a very different picture. I feel like it has been more about me and the circumstances that I have been able to control. Things have been pretty stable. I've been supported, comfortable, dealing with the chaos of the middle third of my life, looking for meaning, balancing. The best things that ever happened to me, happened during the last ten years: Him, Them, my beautiful cherubs. Me finding me. Home Real Home. Growth. A type of acceptance. A fragile closure.

Putting it into groups like that is sort of weird, because it makes me feel a little apprehensive about the next ten years. The pattern as it stands is 10 fine, 10 not fine, 10 fine. What will the next 10 be? Does life really flow in waves? Does there have to be a down after an up? A valley after a rise? Can't I just plateau out here for a little bit? I really do feel tired of climbing this last hill, and I would just like to enjoy the view for a while. Let me at least catch my breath now that I seem to have an even footing. Besides, in another 10 years time I'm going to be the mother of two teenage daughters, so surely it would do everyone a heap-load of good if I could just use this time to prepare myself for THAT stage. I am clueless about parenting pubescents, and I'm guessing that ten years preparation time would put me in good stead to handle that challenge with confidence.

And when the mental ambulations set in like this, I wonder if it wouldn't help to mull this over a glass of wine... I  feel like I might be three glasses behind already.