"I'm just enjoying my life at the moment" - Eric Cantona
Over a year has passed since we arrived back from our trip. My promised reflections have taken a while. What a strange year to which to return, with almost another entire year spent 24/7 as a family, away from wider family and friends. Perhaps now readers of this blog understand a little more the difficulties we faced in home-schooling, in spending every day in each other's company and being separated from those you love.
But our year away trained us well and I can honestly say that this year has been one of the very best of my life. Because against all the hardships and the highs and lows we experienced, we learned how to live life as a family. To tackle it together and enjoy everything. I can honestly say that the trip itself wasn't as wonderful as I had hoped. It was harder work than I imagined. The pressure of planning was arduous and there was an element of disappointment that everyone wasn’t absolutely loving every single second of it. It was scary at times, not because of danger, but because one questioned whether we were doing the right thing. You won't be surprised to hear that Leone and I argued bitterly at times, and there was no sanctuary for either of us to retreat to; no friend on whose shoulder to cry. But my oh my, am I happier having made that trip.
People often say to live in the moment and I had never really understood what that meant let alone what it meant to me. But now I think I have a better idea. It's not that we are radiating happiness at all times. Things still go wrong (my new business I co-founded upon my return was a complete disaster), we still get angry with each other and we still get tired. But together we have learnt how to cope with it and to enjoy both the highs and the lows, to enjoy the journey. We live in a wonderful home. Our children are by and large incredibly happy in their new school and we are all loving living in the countryside. But the difference isn't really our environment. It is how we approach our environment. And just as you endure the pain of training to get fit, so we strive to enjoy everything that life throws at us. Not looking too far ahead, of course, but equally trusting that whatever the future throws at us we can deal with. Once you have this confidence, you can live in the moment. Leone has this skill in great big bucket loads, and it took our trip to uncover more of it in me. We do less, we enjoy it all more, and we are more relaxed. And when things go wrong, we laugh (or I try to) and we deal with it. There will be pitfalls ahead, we know, but the reboot in our life has added the longed for perspective and we are armed to make the most of it all. For now, we look back on our journey and see how far we travelled, only to come back to where it all began. Nothing much around us has changed, but we as a family have changed and it means that we live life excited about the next day and better equipped to make the best of whatever life throws at us. And in doing so, we enjoy our moment.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.” - Ernest Hemingway
Comentarios