After Motherhood: What’s Next?

So, Christmas has happened and it felt very different this year.

My lovely daughter has somehow, in ways I can’t describe but that are just utterly obvious to me, transformed into a Real Grown Up.

To the extent that I felt obliged to tell her so.

Weird.

And then on Christmas Eve we went to stay with my darling son and his glorious girlfriend, and they made a Sumptuous Banquet and arranged with Santa for our stockings to be left outside our bedroom door for us overnight.

Very Weird.

And then we got up early on Christmas Morning and did their washing up for them, channelling my lovely Mum for all we were worth, and doing our best not to wake them.

Weird for everyone involved, that one…

And then we made our way through the snow to my lovely sister and her equally lovely husband for a Medieval Feast and an afternoon of merriment and love and familyness.

And I realised when we got home that this was the first time in 20 years that I hadn’t put out a carrot for Rudolph and a glass of something for Santa, and a Feast of some sort had not been prepared in my kitchen, and that my time of absolute Motherhood is ended.

And it felt a bit weird and a bit sad for a little while, and then other thoughts started to come through.

And in the last few days I’ve had time to do a lot of deep and careful thinking, and some writing and some talking with My Lovely Husband – about what’s next.

What do I want more of, and what do I want less of?

That’s getting easy – I want less nastiness and unpleasantness and violence. I don’t want to see or hear about or seek entertainment from anything that doesn’t have love at the core – and so I’m choosing to remove myself from those things.

I want more simplicity around me – if my living space is a reflection of the inside of my head, then the inside of my head is full of all sorts of junk and clutter that’s stopping me from appreciating the beauty of the things I’ve consciously chosen – so tomorrow we’re going to start on The Great Sorting Out. We may not ever become the kind of people who live in a show house, but William Morris’ stricture to have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful, is reverberating around my mind like a drumbeat.

I want space and peace and light – light to see clearly by and lightness of spirit to explore my Spirit and my Purpose.

And I want to move into action. I’ve been waiting for a sign that it’s the Right time to launch, telling myself that I’m gathering information and options and that I’ll know when I’ve got it Right and in the meantime I must rest and gather my resources.

But I haven’t been resting and I haven’t been practising just “being” – I’ve been procrastinating and making excuses for not doing anything constructive. I haven’t spent time nurturing myself, I’ve just let time flow away from me.

That’s not “being”, that’s “blobbing” and I want no more “blobbing”.

So I choose peace and space and light and lightness.

I choose learning and discovery and action and courage.

And above all, I choose love. If there is a choice of actions I will choose the one with love at its core.

And now that my time of Absolute Motherhood is ended, I can channel the love in me more widely, to encompass more people and to nurture more souls, while still keeping my babies in my heart.

And I like the way that feels.