Letting God play dice

Day 264

Life is all about change sometimes. In our house we know a fair whack about that, as it happens. We rarely live anywhere longer than five years. Careers are updated or totally changed on a regular basis. I can't even keep a room looking the same for more than six months without all the furniture needing to be moved.

We live in a space of flux and progress as regards our inner selves, too. I am not the woman I was ten years ago, not remotely. I'm not even the woman I was last year. We are physical, emotional and intellectual nomads - always on the move.

Two years ago, I was a student, my younger son Sam was anti-school and working at Costa Coffee, and my fella was in I.T. in Bristol. One year on from that and I had finished college, and both husband and son were unemployed, but hubbie had started training as a Psychotherapist. Update another year to now, and fella has been working in Belgium, Sam is at college, and I am writing books and selling paintings.

Yet more change is on the horizon. For reasons that are his business Steve is discontinuing his psychotherapy, and the job is Antwerp is up in the air. Sam is pushing 20 and is starting to mature into a much more aware young man. I have gone through a complete identity crisis which - talking of change! - the bloody menopause has not helped. And yet, out of all of this I can only see the glimmers of light on a new horizon. My pulse quickens at the thought of "what next?".

Do you love, as I do, being driven down an unknown road, gazing out of the window at unfamiliar sights, drinking it all in? This is my life - a long drive down an unknown road. I trust the future and what it will bring because I have faced death and am not frigthened by it. There is safety in that. The future can bring what it likes, and the less I know about that the more surprised and delighted I often am.

So many times now we have been in a situation that could easily be labelled as unfortunate, and yet it has never really been so. Afterwards we have always found ourselves looking back and saying "look where we are now, thank goodness that happened because it led us here - how lucky are we?". Providence, serendipity, fortune favouring the brave - however you wish to call it - this is a marvellous thing. I am sitting on the cusp of change right now. I can feel it's bite and the familiar tingle in my solar plexus.

An unknown road beckons my husband, and where he goes, so go I. We are fellow journeymen in this life together. External changes usually demand internal ones - lessons learnt, ideologies shifted, old habits discarded, a cleansing if you will. We hold each others hands through it, and often provide the push for uncertain feet to move forward. Sometimes we have to drag each other. But we go, we travel, we move on, always together.

This time next year, where will we be? I love that I have no idea at all. So much potential, so much unplanned, unexpected, or out my control. The universe has the map to my life, not I. When it offers me riches that were more than I asked for, anticipated or imagined, I take them and say "thank you".

Yes. Say "thank you" and jump. That about sums it up, I think. If you relinquish some of the control and expand your horizons to include the unexpected, you may get more than you dreamed.

I always do.

Life to the power of Ten

Day 193

Ten days since I have able to get to the computer - ten days! And now Steve has left for Antwerp and it will be another ten days before he comes home. I drove him to the airport, he's flying to Amsterdam, then getting a train to Antwerp. At the weekend he'll be going down to France ready for an early flight to Romania on Monday, then back to Antwerp for Thursday and home on Friday, before returning to London on Sunday in order to make it back to Antwerp on the Monday morning! Phew......!

The last week has all been about preparation and everything changing at the last minute. His contract is now for six weeks and after that we wait and see, but it is a start and means we can pay the rent OK, so we're happy with that. Plus, Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world, apparently, and I have been hinting a lot, and not subtly, because I can't be doing with that.

Our lovely, sweet neighbour, David, went up to London to submit some paintings to the Royal Academy for the Summer Exhibition. This required a lot of paperwork. David is in his eighties and 'computer' is not his first language by any means, so that meant Steve scanning in and emailing copious amounts to David's daughter and others, until it was organised. He brought it over last Wednesday and Steve finished it yesterday, (so it was complicated, or David made it so, I'm not sure which, bless him).

Then there was lots of money stuff to sort out, what with signing off the dole but still needing to get some pay forwarded so that we could live until proper payday, all over a bank holiday weekend, of course. And buying underwear etc. - ten months on the dole and it's all looking a bit too sheepish to pack, and there aren't enough socks in pairs c'os the kids pinch 'em.

And he had to get a laptop - up until now he's always been allocated one as part of whatever job he was doing. Now things are different so he had to buy one to take. Got a really good deal on a Compaq from Tesco, then had to spend hours and hours transferring stuff from the PC onto it. I am such a computer widow sometimes.

Then there was the issue of the car. I won't drive Steve's massive Saab because it is automatic and has power steering which I am not used to. The last time he made me drive one of his cars, I ended up totalling it on (or rather, around) a side barrier, and I've been supremely unconfident about my driving ever since. That car was very like the one he has now and I am just not ready to go there yet. This is me being very wimpish, I know, but there it is.

My own car has been in the garage for months now as we felt there was no point taxing and MOTing two cars while Steve was out of work. Plus it needs some work doing - water pump and probably head gasket. Steve didn't want to leave me without transport, (even though I said it was okay and I would walk everwhere, but he knows my feet are agony at the moment), and my car would take a few weeks to sort out. Hmmmm........what to do? Steve went where he always goes at a time like this ..........Ebay.

Got a gorgeous Ka, S reg, clean as a whistle, and in Cheltenham which is only down the road. (Steve has got carried away and had me drive all the way to Harrogate from Dorchester for a car before now, so he knew better than to do that again - especially as I now know it shouldn't take two and a half hours to get out of the Peak district!). Got it for only £700 - bargain! Thank you, Steve's work for giving him that sub. I am loving it. The plan is to pass it on to Sam for his birthday this year, as long as he has passed his test by then, so he's a happy bunny too.

So we have been mostly driving, or shopping, or phoning various official people about money, or washing, ironing and packing, or slaving over various computers, or trying to find the cheapest way for Steve to come back at the weekends for his course, or working out how we're going to phone each other without it costing the Earth, and finding time to watch Masterchef.

Now I am going to chill out for the evening, and try and get my brain to stop saying "right, what have I got to do next.." because everything is handled. Deep breath, glass of wine, exhale......and relax.

Tomorrow, finally, My New Life actually starts. In one sense it feels like that scene at the end of Ghostbusters - the one where they have to choose the form that the destructor will take, and they pick a marshmallow man. I have to choose the form of My New Life now that Steve has gone from my space and bring it into being tomorrow.

I don't know what it will look like. I do know I am ready. And I have ten days........