fiftyfreeandsingle

When I came home last week to a burgled home with a front door off it’s hinges and a ransacked house there were several different ways I could have reacted.

As I might have done  in another time I would have been angry, felt that my private space had been invaded, that whovever did this was just a shit of a human being, I could have felt abused, violated in some way. I didnt have those feelings, what I felt was entirely different.

I  felt I was being given a message, another one, again. That I was being told in no uncertain terms that I needed a shake up, another reminder, as if those other reminders I have had were not enough, another slap around the chops to say, hey you, wake up, you’ve got it wrong, it ain’t working, find another way.

A few minutes after my little catastrophe had struck  I wanted to tell somebody, I instictively contacted one person, I realised in that moment that I cared about them deeply, whatever the relationship with them was they meant something deep to me.

Shortly after the break in I had more bad news, somebody that I haven’t seen in a while but that I have always held in the highest esteem I learnt this week is very ill. I have seen too little of them in recent years, at times earlier in my life, when things were tough they were one person that I could talk to and that I felt understood by, listened to, I hold  great affection for them. Realising that they are not going to be around makes me understand that the people in your life who have meaning for you need to be cherished, that you have to tell them what they mean to you, they or indeed you are not always going to be around.

I watched my son in a University Drama showcase at the Tricycle theatre and I wonder at his future and what life holds for him, I think good things, but I worry that he will have his difficulties and challenges in the future, that I can not necessarily help him with them.

He will experience love and loss, he will grow and falter and grow again as the years roll by. He will face his own challenges as the years unfold,  I can only tell him I love him.

I think about the people that I care about, have cared about and who knowing has made me the better for. I think of the future and the people I have yet to meet, yet to share moments of life with. When all is said and done, possessions mean so little, the basics of course matter, but in the end all you ever have are fleeting moments with those you truly care about. Tell those important people that you love them , after all, in the end what else could there possibly be?