Grace, Space and accidental wildflowers...
A celebration of the man I chose to love.
Hi, I’m Claire. I’m an Engagement Consultant and Mentor and I love to write about growing our businesses whilst LIVING a life that feels whole hearted.
All my resources for members (paid subs) are here. I usually publish weekly - more personal stuff on Sundays and behind the scenes of my business stuff on Mondays (for paid members).
Celebrating Eleven Years (nearly)
Loving someone for a long time is like the longest hottest summer day.
You experience so much of life together.
It gets intense and eventually the cloak of night arrives and says…
“…rest, just rest.”
I’m so glad I get to wake up with Dave every day.
If you’re not one for sentimental writing, maybe this isn’t the post for you today….
TW - Covid.
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For those of you who don’t know my husband
got very sick in October 2020 with a mystery illness. I was in my third trimester of pregnancy and just as I was about to give birth we both caught covid. A mild case that in David turned into 3.5 years of de-habilitating long covid symptoms with no cure and only mad suggestions of support (like speech therapy) from our NHS.
On acceptance and love
We have accepted a lot about our life in this window of time, surrendered a lot within in it too. There have been sadness in losses but also expansiveness and much resilience.
Now I know how to lean into that word (resilience).
To love our reality rather than shy away from it or try to escape it or out run it.
Resilience; it’s not everything but it’s been part of it all.
There’s been loss, so much loss and grief yet so much joy. Even typing those words makes my heart contract.
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Penning the words…
Self expression is a real healer and while the words might feel intimate here, they are only 3% of the story. Life is multi-layered and complex and a thousand and one things are true all at once.
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On space, grace and wildflowers…
Stillness in meditation (45 mins x twice a day for hundreds of days) while the bald patches in the lawn fill with wild flowers…
…I wonder what would become of the house if I left it all alone forever. Who would take care of the kids? How would everyone eat the special pasta, 11 minutes and a minute or two to cool, a sprinkling of cheese.
How would they know about birthday presents and dates and dentist appointments?
I see why so much is curated, block paving and plastic grass…but how do we deeply rest for mess is such a big part of life?
What does it look like if you choose it for healing?
Wild flowers grow when you haven’t got the energy and time to ‘take care’ of your garden.
They are often tall, strikingly pretty and catch you unawares.
You know the day inside out. It presents itself; here I am… again. Let’s go!!!
It’s familiar, everything’s normal and then all of a sudden a bright pop of colour proves you never knew anything at all.
Trees get taller each year.
Like our front garden cherry blossom tree that bursts into pink and white hues in April. David has to climb and trim back every year so it doesn’t reach the overhead electric cables.
I kept wondering IF I could do it but settled on ringing the electricity company… Only to find David already up the tree, overalls on sawing down branches too close for comfort. What could I do but shout up and offer more tea?
Tea there is always tea and thank goodness for tea. (Ringtons loose leaf with more than a splash of milk if you’re curious?)
Over tea, emotions about life and living become deeper, you feel things in impossible ways.
You see more beauty, feel more gratitude, have more hope.
You ask for more help.
Your dreams twist and turn into fairy stories of resolve and calm.
You fall asleep frozen terrified but wake up feeling a wash of everything might be ok.
Like the swoosh of a magic wand…
Not every day but in the breathless ones this happens.
It’s a familiar way to feel alive but never one I’d choose or wish for a person or a partner.
We both write for cathartic reasons and to support our nervous systems.
Beautiful things happens when we do. ✨
On trust
There have been times (a lot of them) where I felt I couldn’t do it, where I totally collapsed.
Where the words of my nine year rinse through my cells; “…but Mum dad won’t always be sick, people always get better especially when they are young…”
I choose to believe him.
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People said it was too much;
Nursing a baby, building a business, being a mother and a carer for my husband.
I woke up (extra early) every day and did it all anyway. I taught myself new ways, many of them so that I could feel more secure. So I could walk in energy that was abundant so it might help my husband rest.
I took action, did the next right thing. I hated seeing Dave with yellow skin and puffy limbs. I wanted to fix all of it, everything, all the things. I thought if I didn’t look maybe for a few days it wouldn’t be there. If I prayed, there’d be a herb, a medicine, a teacher, a someone, something…
Maybe time, we just needed time… more sleep. More days of rest.
I needed time to speed up and go backwards all at once.
I wanted to only have foods that didn’t make him sick in the house but it felt like everything made everything worse.
So just as the moon was rising in the sky each night, we said;
“We’ll try again tomorrow…”
And we did. It’s impossible to see someone you love so sick for so long but it also deepens your love and trust beyond measure.
Happy Birthday and Happy Father’s Day to the man of my dreams, my one and only, the person I chose and choose to love.
The man who showed me fatherhood without asking for anything in return, the man who has started running again, carrying epic logs again, standing tall again - so unbelievably in awe of you and your healing journey -
x
Final calls - members we’re meeting online this week…
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Turn your Instagram into a Digital Magazine on Substack
🤩 This Sunday 16 June, 5pm (UK time), replay available.❤️
A love story ❤️ You are a strong woman and a loving one. You all deserve all the happiness each day can offer in the smallest of things and the enduring love you all share.
So glad your husband is getting stronger. Thank you for writing this. It’s not easy to watch your loved one suffer, and know you can’t do anything to help, other than be there, lonely, as well. It’s the last day of carers week today. So this is so apt (even if you didn’t think of yourself as a carer, you probably were).