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Discovering myself again after being buried under the fog of the early years of parenting.
Over the past few months, I had been waking earlier each morning. This would often happen well before sunrise, and slowly and ever so gradually, I began to pay attention to the energy of a new day rather than scanning social media on my phone.
A lover of early mornings since childhood, this wasn’t new to me.
The smells, the sounds of birds waking and chatting amongst themselves, brave but sleepy faces emerging from houses to meet the cool, crisp air of the new day.
I hadn’t forgotten, but the blinkers of the early parenting years had been firmly attached. With three children to raise, that (rather long) chapter needed my focus and full attention. So many of the things I craved to do had shifted to the side in favour of the day to day caring of young children and desperately chasing sleep.
The unfurling of my next chapter began with a short drive to my local beach at 5:45am. That very cold winter morning, barefoot on the sand was all it took for it to come flooding back.
Seeing the lights twinkling on the ships out at sea, the surfers assessing the swell and waxing their boards, a few sleepy faces stumbling behind me, hopeful to catch a glimpse of the rising sun. My people.
The energy I felt was palpable while watching the sun peak out from behind the salt encrusted cliffs. I felt flooded with an unbridled joy — similar to the feeling I felt after running into a dearly loved friend. One who had emerged after time has passed but the love hadn’t waned.
Over the coming months, I would set my alarm in the early hours but often woke unaided, excited to throw on my pre laid out clothes and creep out the door with ninja precision so that my exit wouldn’t be disturbed by sleepy little voices asking where I was off to.
This new ritual, just for me, was wonderful.
It was so energising and so needed. I didn’t realise just how much I had missed these quiet moments all alone on the sand watching the sun rise and the waves crash.
Slowly, as more time passed, it became easier to tap further into new rituals and make time for old loves once again. I picked up a camera, I sorted through my beautiful glass beads and began making the jewellery that had just felt too hard to create while working and wrangling children. I not only remembered who I was, I languished…
