Ooofff...

Yes, that's how I feel today. I rarely have Ooofff moments, but this has been a tough week. A trip to see a rapidly-deteriorating ex-Mother-in-Law, being there for her son (my Ex) because that's what you do... well it's what I do... all the while worrying about my sister who was very ill in hospital (recovering I think but still very unwell and with surgery to follow), half an hour on the phone late at night to my sobbing ex-Mother-in-Law who was confused, frightened, and couldn't get anybody to answer her call button (I am angry about that). She's better as I write, almost her old self, and they think a large part of it was caused by a urine infection which hasn't showed up in repeated tests over the last few months, so I'm concerned about that as well.

So - ooofff...

And then last night my first date in over two years. A really nice man but so not a match that I almost wished I hadn't gone and wasted both our evenings. The kind of date which makes you go home and think, "I am pretty happy alone, isn't it safer just not to try?" Two years is a long time to go without being held and kissed, without a shared meal with someone special, or a walk by the river... but I do some of those things on my own (okay, I have to share the meal with myself!) quite well. I am torn - is it so bad to sink into the comfort of long-term singleness (almost 10 years now) or am I copping out by not copping off?

Ooofff...

Still, I'm the Queen of Picking Up and Dusting Down. I survived seven hellish years of constant trips to A&E/Operating theatres with one of my daughters, and we're out the other end.

This too shall pass...

I've always identified with Snufkin in the Moomin books when the first stirrings of Autumn (which led Moominmamma to prepare for hibernation) called him like the Pied Piper. He would stand and sniff the air and know that it was time to go.

I feel like this every year in Autumn. As I grow older I find myself less worried about consequences, and more aware that I need to do all the things I want before it's too late. I see this as a gift of ageing, this reshuffling of priorities. I've known too many people who've died within a year of retirement. I'm not going to postpone my life.

Brave talk. I ought to add for the sake of accuracy that as of this moment I've no idea where this will take me. But, like Snufkin, I'm sniffing the air and wondering...