Just Dreaming of a Bookshop

This weekend felt other-worldly.  I was mostly home alone and the weather was cold and raining.  I woke up before dawn on both days for some reason and had time to just take everything in.  The life that went by this past year.  The difficulties and the remaining challenges at its close.  This very moment, my mother is having an operation for incisional hernia and while I was dressing up for work I could not help but stare at my fear in the face.  What if this Christmas won't be a nice and peaceful one?  What if I will get stuck in a job that will stifle the life out of me?  What if the coming year will not bring me new opportunities to look forward to?

I looked back at the weekend that I allowed myself to revel in.  Soaked in the words of my books and spent some time looking at travel blogs that showed me a life existing in the big world out there.  I looked at all the things that have happened that felt like an exhausting train ride.  And now I am looking at the destination of which I have the feeling of arriving.

It's 6 days till Christmas and what I have in my heart is this great big longing for a different life.  A life that I've continued to deny myself of wanting.  A simple life.  A meaningful life.  And I long for my mother to enjoy this same life as well.  For most her life, she probably lived like me.  Always having to keep up with obligations and expectations.  Always having to stay strong and steer clear from being  vulnerable.  Always having to be the problem solver and the peacemaker to the point of having to sacrifice time to find peace inside herself.

I don't know how many times I'll have to watch this video to keep being inspired to move towards this kind of life.  I don't know how I'll even get to living this kind of life where I am.  But it is a life I dream about.  And I want to keep dreaming and believing that I'll live it someday.




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