Stocktake complete

I almost don't want to write it, for fear of it being true, or not true after all: I believe that I've had the big rest, the time to do something different which I SO needed in this trip. I'm ready for a new step, more active again.

This trip began as a desperation to be in Europe, part of this big world up here, where I feel right-side up. To introduce my children to my grandmother, to re-bond with what is also me, to show my boys that the world is so much bigger, that there are sides to their mother which they could not begin to imagine, over there on sunny Bar Beach after school one day. To explore the big world again, to immerse myself in it. Not to work. Travel.

And it's become a stocktake, a reflection of The First Half, with some thoughts now able to start about what I might do with The Second Half. Much bigger than I even knew. Confirmation that I am not a great at-home mum, even though I love them to pieces. I need a way to contribute as an adult, independent of all.

It's also really not sounding like a third child is on our horizon. I have treasure, two lively treasures, who will need, and get, so much of my best, who challenge me, surprise me, enrich me every day. So there's still a bit of room for me just to be me, in a way not mother/wife/daughter. The weepy part of me wails, the awake part sees that it's a good thing we've got going. Why change the balance - when it will change naturally, as everyone gets a bit older, into new things? It's other people's turns to do the babytime, I had mine, I did.

Leathermanman has made his big decision - to leave Psychiatry, and go for General Practice. Months of talking at every point, emails to all, oh and another thought on the subject. It was final one evening in Turkey: he went to the email, from our huts among the orange groves in Olympos and emailed the news. I sat around the fire, watching flames crackle, and was STOPPED with the reality of this moment: it's done. He's decided. Consequences for me too, I can think of my own path, can shape a path in line with that too.

Thought all this as I did washing, unpacking, paper sifting, after 2 FANTASTIC weeks holiday in Turkey. Couldn't talk about it till a few days later.