Can i bow out when it gets tough?

This week we had a rude awakening from Mr Fox, it must be about a year since our last encounter when Xena fought him off and raised the alarm in the early hours. This time he was outside the Pen frightening the living daylights out of the girls who had only just skipped down the drawbridge for breakfast. Dick was down the garden in a flash and the fox legged it out of the garden. We have made considerable improvements to their security since the last episode, although I know you can never become complacent, I took comfort in the fact that there was no evidence he had been digging or trying to gain entry. I think the exbatts, who are housed separately, were oblivious to this, although I noticed that the fox had obviously been sniffing around their house as he had left his “calling card” deposited at their back door.

These sorts of episodes always leave me tense and edgy. The temptation is to think that it is all too much hassle having to be one step ahead of the fox, always alert to his ways and possible schemes. I entertain the thought that I could protect myself from all this worry if I didn’t keep chickens…and that got me thinking about life in general, the fact that I can’t hide away from the harsh realities of what life may throw at me. I can’t say that when life gets tough, I am bowing out and looking for an easier option where people don’t get hurt and the ones I love are always cocooned in a protective bubble. We all need to get out there and live life. Sometimes I need to get my risk assessments in perspective and stop my over fertile imagination giving me unhelpful images! I wonder how many of us let fear rule what we do with our lives…or more likely, what we don’t do with our lives. You see I don’t really want to be the sort of person, who says “No” for the wrong reasons. So I look at my life, I put strategies in place where I am weak, I ask for help and encouragement and I use my commonsense! Every day I am becoming more prepared to take on this adventure called LIFE and I am determined not to allow “stuff” to get in the way…but to get out there and live life…but sometimes you may have to be a bit patient with me!

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got”.

Today I walked to work past the usual red brick houses all self contained, in neat little predictable rows and I felt trapped….No that’s not exactly true, it wasn’t me that felt trapped, it was the lifestyle they represented that made me what to run and shout “It doesn’t have to be this way, get out, Live, Learn (new stuff) experience the adventure, the excitement of new beginnings, challenges that beckon! Let’s not settle for mediocrity, a half life, a “what if I had have done that” life.

So why am I restless? I feel as if I am being birthed into something new, does that sound weird? Probably to some of you who will read this, it will seem a little wacky and you will put it down to the fact that I am approaching a big zero number next year and am having a mini mid life crisis, but I think there is something else going on here. Whereas some of my friends are looking ahead to settling down to pottering around their gardens, enjoying the thought of grandchildren in the next few years, I want to be out loving the unlovely, the hurting, vulnerable and marginalised. I want to get my hands dirty and care for the dying, the poor, the people whom nobody wants to hug…I feel that if I can’t soon hold someone who hurts so bad or feels so alone I will burst. It is growing in me, yet I have moments when I’m cool and I can compartmentalise these feelings and put them on hold for a while…yet all the time knowing that “something needs to be dealt with”. It’s this “hands on “thing, it won’t go away, and yet I know there is timing in all of this. Something has been put into motion, something that excites me because it all sort of makes sense from things that have been said, dreams that have been dreamt. Yet, I feel no apprehension, merely an awareness to listen and observe. Sometimes I feel like an onlooker in my own life, wondering what will be said next, what emotion will rise up, what phrase will be blurted out unchecked, something from deep within…

I am travelling light, unencumbered; I am learning what I need for my journey, Simplicity and Focus