Thy Life is a Miracle

I’ve spent a month having health tests and waiting for results whilst pondering my own existence. I have fallen into some dark moments, and I have been forced to rest. The frog who is boiled alive doesn’t realise they are in hot water until it’s too late and as with my health, I hadn’t realised I’d been on a slow decline for a long time. Midlife is a gamble, a gauntlet of possibilities of every illness available, and I am so relieved to have been told that I have nothing sinister and can begin treatment. I have been forced to rest and after all the changes I have been going through, I have been forced to question EVERYTHING.

“Thy Life is a Miracle” - King Lear

By midlife we know that we are all walking each other home. We know that self-care needs to be high on our agenda. We know that we have responsibilities to our children and elders. We know.

But how do you do the work of being you? Of walking through the storms and coming back to self? How do you bear the scars of your own existence and keep your heart wide open to curiosity and possibility?

This month I remembered that I have a value beyond what I earn, beyond my productivity. I have a value beyond the labels I wear of artist, mother, daughter. I realise that I have a responsibility to show up for my own needs, wants and desires because life is short, and getting shorter.

Matt Haig’s book, ‘How to Stop Time’ couldn’t have arrived at a better time. I was gifted it, and it has been sat on the shelf waiting to be read. It’s a story of time travel, of the pain of outliving others. It’s about reinventing yourself and living the different versions of you, and it is about love. I found it comforting and a reminder of all that is good, a reminder of human resilience.

I listened to Olivia Fern’s ’This too shall pass’ and recalled my Grandma saying those very words. I felt her whisper those words to me across time.

An accidental painting made at the borders of an intentional painting

For someone already a little lost in the transitions of life, this month has been grounding. I have slept when I needed to, cried at the beauty of small moments and grieved for all that I thought life would be and is not. I have in truth, released my old self and now, in the knowledge that with the help of my doctor I will get well soon, I give myself permission to grow. Like Russian dolls I am stepping into the next, bigger version of me.

On my desk I have an affirmation card, “Stop worrying, everything is going to be fine” and perhaps it will be.