A note from the road
© Middle Years Monday
Hello dear Friends,
First of all, to my US middle years sisters reading this - we are all holding our breath for you and wrapping you in a warm embrace. Whatever the outcome of today's election you are not alone. Big love to you.
I don't know about you, but today my head is full of grey mush. In a few days time we return to at least another month of lockdown here in the UK, there is so much going on in the world and it's leaving me with a strong compulsion to sleep. It's too easy to have an internal running commentary about all the things we should be doing; all the gratitude we should be feeling; all the positive mental attitude we should be cultivating. But these are exceptional times and some days it's important to just allow ourselves to hide under the duvet and feel all the feelings. Please consider this your permission slip to do just that next time you find yourself battling through a fog of fatigue and overwhelm. There is always tomorrow and the opportunity it brings for a more sparkly day.
This time a week ago we had just been shown to our pitch in a beautiful woodland campsite where we spent the final night of our first ever campervan holiday. It was the most glorious and life-affirming place in which to wake up and walk around the next morning, as you can see from the pic above. The response to the email I wrote about that trip to the Middle Years Monday membership community was so incredibly warm, effusive and joyful so I thought I'd take the unusual step of sharing that email with you here today, in the hope that if you are feeling in need of a few moments of distraction this might do the trick.
I also want to share with you something that a psychologist friend told me many years ago - what she said is that in order for us humans to be happy we need three things:
A fellow human or pet to love
Something fulfilling to do
Something hopeful to look forward to
It struck me recently how difficult the events of 2020 have made it to hold onto number 3 and of the toll that this is taking on many of us. In this personal note from me you'll read about the something hopeful that I am now looking forward to. It's definitely helping.
And if after reading this email you feel like luxuriating in some further escapism and seeing the world from your armchair, here are three of the van lifers whose accounts of their travels I am finding a perfect antidote on the harder days. You'll notice that they are all extremely youthful and I look forward to contributing some middle years van life adventures to these platforms in 2021. In the meantime both Sophie and Camille (who you'll read about below) are doing this brilliantly!!:
Whenever I share a personal story like the one below I am riddled with doubt about whether it will feel irrelevant to anyone other than me. But the outpouring of heartfelt replies I received reminded me of how powerful it can be when firsthand accounts of the lives of others arrive in our life at just the right time. So here goes...
A NOTE FROM THE ROAD
"After a morning spent doing campervan ‘labours of love’ (a poetic version of chores) such as refilling the freshwater tank, emptying out the chemical loo (thank you David), diagnosing a (non-catastrophic) problem with the waste water tank, and washing up last night’s supper dishes, I made us a cooked brekkie.
We grabbed the opportunity to sit outside to eat it – during the only bit of sunshine forecast today. Our camping chairs are the comfiest things ever and it was totally worth the cold food and tepid tea in order to enjoy the sun on our faces and the chance to breathe in that heady fresh air smell.
I’d like to share with you the constellation of events that have brought me to this moment, in case there is anything in my experience that speaks to yours…
I am writing this to you from a campsite in blustery Dorset (just up the road from the gorgeous stretch of coast shown in the pic below and next to a field of cows, including my friend at the bottom of this email), perched on our (very bijou and lumpy, but somehow still comfy) bed at the back of our rental campervan. There’s a view through the windows of green, rolling hills that meet in a perfect, gentle valley, through which the gunmetal sea is glistening and providing a home for three enormous cruise ships that are anchored there – and have been for months – because of Covid.
© Middle Years Monday
© Middle Years Monday
“My days rest in a bowl of joy…” Those of you who joined us for Suzy Darke’s interview with Camille Elizabeth (mindful living guide, van-dweller and MYM Member) may remember Camille using these words during that conversation. They landed straight in my heart and have stayed there ever since.
My days have really not been resting in a bowl of joy. Not for several years. In truth, they’ve increasingly been swimming in a sea of anxiety. This has crescendoed during 2020 and - in this past couple of months especially – I’ve been stumbling through each day in a fog of bone-deep fatigue with my body giving me every possible signal that I’m just about at my maximum capacity for stress. My fibromyalgia – which I had found ways to mostly stay on top of – has returned with full force. I have found it increasingly difficult to leave the house and life has become an exhausting mix of compulsively long working days spent at the computer, combined with numbed-out evenings slumped on the sofa watching one box set after another. Every bit of sensuality that life can offer has been discarded and my jaw permanently aches from its now default clenching.
Life is precious, it can be short and this is no way to live.
Several years ago after IVF, one solitary pregnancy that ended in a difficult miscarriage and the realisation that David and I would never have children - as part of finding a way to make my peace with this - I made a promise to myself that I would find ways to celebrate the relative freedom that accompanies a childless life.
This March, just as Covid was kicking in, David had his 58th birthday. His father died at the age of 57 and his only sibling died at the age of 58. My beloved David has the same heart condition that killed them both. I wish I was one of those brilliant people who are able to take this sort of thing in their stride, but it turns out that I am far from heroic when it comes to finding a way to live with what can feel like intolerable uncertainty. What I do know is that I am not up for waiting until ‘retirement’ (whatever that is) for the real fun to begin. Perhaps David and I will get to share a long and happy dotage together. But perhaps we won’t. So there is no better time than now for us to grab life with both hands.
As I type this I am so deeply aware of my privilege and I feel a sting of shame that I am not better at somehow neutralising the profound angst I feel with the gratitude I have for my good fortune in various departments of my life – not least of which is Middle Years Monday which brings me at least as much nourishment as I hope it gives you. But I am trying to remind myself that both gratitude and angst can exist alongside each other and that it’s OK to be human and flawed as hell. Each day brings with it a new opportunity to try a different approach. Which nearly brings me to today, to this lumpy bed, in this campervan, on this Dorset campsite. Nearly, but not quite…
I am deeply interested in the extent to which our lives are controlled by the narratives we have inherited and constructed. By the stories we tell ourselves about what is possible, realistic, allowed. About what is inevitable – about what we need to just accept. On the whole I believe that we have far more options available to us than we often realise. And listening to Camille speaking about the life she has created for herself reminded me of this. I have either a video or audio piece brewing during which I’d like to share more on this with you – but for now, suffice it to say that I am working on actively allowing the idea that joy is my birthright to soak into my bones, into my muscles and my sinews and to permeate into the daily decisions that I make.
When Dr Grace Alexander spoke to us in September about effecting change in our lives she used the same word that I found myself using in a talk I was asked to give to a group of 91 Magazine readers in the summer of 2019. That word was ‘whispers’. The way my life has unfolded has been as a result of me choosing to listen to a series of whispers. Again, I’ll say more about this another time. But suffice it to say that the whole conversation Camille and Suzy had was one almighty whisper for me!
So, David and I have decided to renew our commitment to embracing the freedom that life has given us; to make the most of the time we have together; to inject more joy into our lives; and to remember that – much as 2020 has made us all have to dig really, really deep to hold onto this – we are the creators of our own lives. No-one is coming to save us – that’s on us. So, I’m going to be working hard for the remainder of 2020 at getting much, much better at becoming my own knight in shining armour.
And that’s pretty much what has brought us to this campervan, in this field. I grew up close by and the older I get the stronger the gravitational pull to this place becomes. But this is about much more than a desire to be in Dorset for a few days…
Spending a few months each year packing up our working lives and taking them on the road feels very much like it ticks a huge number of boxes for us. So this little 12-night adventure is actually a test to make sure that we enjoy van life before buying our own van. There, I said it: we are going to buy a van.
© Middle Years Monday
© Middle Years Monday
The enormous whisper that became Middle Years Monday has, without me ever consciously intending for this to be the case, provided me with work that makes my soul sing AND can be done from anywhere with a good enough wifi signal. And David’s work is heading in that direction too. So, if all goes according to plan, in 2021 I’ll be running MYM from Hastings for 8 or so months of the year and from Cornwall, Dorset, Wales, Scotland, Scandinavia (and All. The. Places) for the rest of the year. And I can’t think of a better way to seize this one life of mine and David’s – and to embrace my 51st year on this earth.
I will try not to bore you with a blow-by-blow account of our van purchase and the fit-out and our travel plans. But I’ll definitely share the highlights with you in the hope that it might gently encourage you too to invite in the possibility that joy is your birthright – and that your life also could almost certainly take on a different shape if that’s something you long for.
The biggest thing standing in the way of my van dream right now is wifi! This was always meant to be a working trip but despite doing tons of research before we came away about which mobile providers offer coverage on this campsite (and then signing up for a 6-month contract with one of them!) we mostly have zero phone or wifi here. So the chances are that I’ve pressed send on this email from a random layby somewhere in Dorset – as I’m about to go out and hunt for enough elusive signal to send this missive to you.
You’ll now understand why this week’s email doesn’t include a round-up of some of the lovely stuff that’s been shared in our Facebook group recently – because I mostly am unable to log in to the Facebook group!!
I am reminding myself that you can almost certainly survive without my frequent presence for a few unexpected days! And that lacking wifi is something I should be able to survive without too. And – as Karen commented in the Facebook group – “I have to wonder if the wifi gods are telling you to remain off grid for a bit. Maybe your heart needs the break!”. I think she may well be right – and perhaps I should be listening to this particular whisper.
So my friends, I’ll go to my parents’ house to use their internet for the live sessions we have coming up in the next few days (detailed below). And I’ll see you at next week’s cuppa once I’m back home – so we’ll gather for that on the evening of Thursday 29th at 8pm. And in the meantime, I’ll pop onto Facebook on the odd occasion that I find enough signal – but will be quieter than usual.
COMING UP IN THE NEXT WEEK COUPLE OF WEEKS
Wednesday 21st October at 7pm: Embody Your Future with Tamu Thomas
Friday 23rd October at 9pm: Qiflow with Penny McKinley-Rodgers
Thursday 29th October at 8pm: Our weekly virtual cuppa hosted by me
You can read full details about all of these live sessions in the Members' Area of the website (and you’ll also find the Zoom joining links and passwords there too).
I’ll end here and will look forward to seeing some of your beautiful faces at this week’s session with the wonderful Tamu Thomas.
Much love,
Pip xx"