Monday Morning...

Blogging at eight in the morning on a Monday speaks volumes about the new me – after all, my normal practice on any week day morning is to run about doing my incomparable headless-chicken routine and collapse exhausted for a few minutes before hitting the shower and getting on with the rest of the day. To be honest, its not the new me, but rather the new S that has given me this extra half hour in the mornings, to do as I wish. For some reason this past week, my husband has actually been waking up earlier than me and making that all important first cup of tea and might I say, making it pretty well. It took him about fifteen years to perfect the art of making tea but for me, its an incomparable luxury to walk down the stairs and be asked to sit and sip away contentedly for a few minutes. It changes your perspective. I start relaxed instead of rushed and go about relatively mellow for the rest of the day. Believe me, that does make quite a difference.

One of the things we tend to forget very easily is the power of small changes in our life. They could be anything from getting up a little earlier each morning to promising yourself that you will not let certain people and their actions bother you to remembering to listen and engage totally when your child is telling you a long-winded utterly boring story that nevertheless mattered intensely to her. Life’s bigger realizations may come from going through hardships or through honest introspection but the little lessons that one picks up along the way, come from everyday life. The trick is to be able see them as lessons and not flick them away as inconsequential occurrences.

Most of the things we take for granted are actually our greatest blessings. My family is the most important part of my life. My friends are always there whenever I want to chat or hang out or even keep quiet with. I may have only a handful of friends but they are all very precious indeed. My work at the centre is something I cannot write about without getting emotional – to be given the opportunity to make a difference is rare and truly special. But one of my greatest blessings is perhaps the one I ignore the most – my ability to write. I am frequently told I must do more with it and yet I brush it under the carpet or put it on the back-burner of my life because I never think that my writing is more than just this jotting down of thoughts as a method to find clarity or escape. What fills my heart and runs over, what hurts and tears me inside, what I know needs to be fought for, finds its way into my words. And therefore, I think my writing merely natural and not wonderful. Yes I want to write that book because in me are stories waiting to be set free. But somewhere even I don’t believe that I will do it and that is only because I take it for granted always.

Maybe these relaxed mornings will bring in the change I have been looking for – the few extra minutes needed to find my inner voice in the ceaseless din of roaring thoughts that have a permanent existence in my mind. Whatever be the result, I certainly relish this new-found calm in the middle of a busy Monday morning….