Being brave

This afternoon I stole an hour from work to plant up a bed I cleared and dug over on Sunday, putting in flowering plants for the bees, and enjoying the rainbows drifting in the spray as I watered the soil. I usually plug myself into a podcast but this time I didn't and that left me space for thinking, something that I often tend to try to avoid these days.

I have done Life v2.0 already. It was when I was in a marriage where I was so low that at one point I wondered whether there was a purpose in me being there any longer. Because if I wasn't, it would mean that my then husband could go off with the women I thought he wanted to be with. And then at least two of the three of us would be happy. I was in a job that made me unhappy as well, but I figured that at least I had a job, which was the one constant in my life. And then I was made redundant. That was me plunged into Life v2.0.

But I was brave enough to leave the marriage, move somewhere new completely on my own, and set up as a freelancer. And then Tim and I got together, after having known each other as friends for many years, and we had eight years of marriage. Those were some of the happiest years of my life. Life v2.1 I guess.

And then he died, and I'm left in the limbo of Life v3.0. I don't want to be here. I liked Life v2.1. I don't know whether there's ever going to be a Life v3.1. But I've decided that if I could be brave before I'm going to be brave again.

And it's not the 'Oh, you are so brave, I don't know how I would cope without [insert name here]'. It's a brave with the stitches showing and the glue not quite set. It's a broken and mended brave. It's a Kintsugi bowl repaired with gold brave, a brave that sees the beauty in the flaws. And while it's a kind of brave that doesn't always withstand a puff of wind, I'm hoping it might be the kind that will stand up to a storm.

---