So, here we are, on the very last day of the year. And what a funny ol’ year it’s been. But then I say that every year, from which fact I must conclude that it is, quite simply, a funny ol’ life.
The strangest thing about it is how often we can look back over a period of our lives and be surprised to find that we haven’t ended up where we thought we’d be at this point. Despite all our attempts at forecasting and projecting, planning and scheming, organising and controlling, we hardly ever roll up at the destination we had in mind. Life insists on being obstinately unpredictable.
As I look back at what I was thinking about this time last year, I can see that a lot of the things I thought would happen didn’t, and a lot of things I could never even imagine, did. I’m pleased to discover though, that although the actual circumstances of my life aren’t how I expected them to be, an awful lot of my unspecific wishes have come to fruition. Not the things I talked about and thought about intellectually, on a very conscious level, but those things that I just sort of wordlessly yearned for.
We are living in France (but we’re about to move to a different bit of it). We didn’t buy the land we thought we would (but we are – hopefully – moving to a house with its own land). We didn’t sell our house in England (but we are selling our house in Roquetaillade).
We are STILL waiting on further contact from the estate agent about the House of Our Dreams. We have agreed a price for the house, but now we are waiting to hear about the neighbouring farmer’s land. Simon waits anxiously each day, anticipating the complex and difficult conversation in French that he expects to have at 7.00pm, when the agent said he would ring. And then he waits again all the next day, and the next…And just as we are about to give up hope, we get an email or a phone call and Things move another Snail-Step further forward. We will get there. We will learn Patience along the way. And I have resolved to do further research into this bizarre phenomenon we call ‘Time’, which seems to be a very subjective, culturally dependant and flexible Thing which quite possibly doesn’t really exist at all.
Oh, and (just as I stop myself launching into a massive blog-infesting philosophical ramble) I would like to draw your attention to the new link at the very top of this page in the green bar, entitled “Talk of Many Things”, which will take people-who-can-be-bothered to a whole new section of the site, where I give free rein to my more esoteric musings, without taking up space in the Blog Proper, which, after all, really is supposed to be about Stuff that Actually Happens.
And just before I finally drag myself away from my laptop to spend the remaining couple of hours of 2008 in a slightly more sociable form of activity, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of You Lovely People-Out-There an Exceptionally Happy and Joyful New Year. Keep reading, keep smiling, and keep living your life with All Your Heart.