Released

For a long time, I thought that I had found my absolute dream.

Countryside. Animals. Land to tend.

A life built around feeding, caring, growing, fixing, noticing and constantly looking after something living.

From the outside, it looked exactly like the sort of life I had always imagined wanting.

The epitome of the good life that so many people dream of. 

And it was.

For 13 years, it was.

Each day had its own beautiful natural rhythm. Animals needed feeding whether I felt organised, energised, fully well or not. Things needed checking. Weather mattered more than I care to admit. Seasons certainly mattered. Life happened outside as much as it happened indoors, if not more so.

There were hundreds of tiny interactions woven into each and every day that I probably barely even noticed and totally took for granted.

Opening a gate.

Carrying feed.

Checking water.

Noticing that little thing that appeared slightly different from the day before.

Often standing outside far longer than intended because there was always one more thing to do.

It was physical, messy, tiring, often heart filling, sometimes dreadfully heart breaking.

And for years I think I assumed that because I had wanted that life so badly, I ought to want it forever.

This is what you wanted. Therefore you must continue wanting it.

But lives change.

People change.

Bodies change.

Energy changes.

Circumstances change.

And sometimes the thing that once felt like freedom slowly begins to feel like heavy  responsibility and I didn't even notice.

Not because that lifestyle was in any way a mistake.

Not because it wasn't utterly dreamy and wonderful.

Simply because its season has passed.

Leaving the smallholding meant leaving far more than a house.

It meant losing a whole structure to my days.

The physical work disappeared almost overnight.

So did many of those tiny moments of tending and noticing that had quietly shaped the way I lived.

There was grief in that. It wasn't my decision to give it all up. It wasn't my choice to leave.

But in amongst all of the heartbreak, the tears and the heaviness, something emerged that I hadn't been expecting.

Relief.

More time.

More space.

More possibility.

The slow realisation that I don't actually need to recreate exactly what I had before in order to have a life that feels meaningful.

Perhaps I don't need a collection of animals depending on me in order to feel needed or feel like I have a purpose.

Perhaps I don't need acres of land to notice the seasons or to feel close to nature.

Perhaps loving animals doesn't mean I have to build my entire life around caring for them.

Perhaps the countryside dream was one chapter of my life rather than the final destination.

And perhaps releasing it doesn't mean I have failed to achieve my dream.

Maybe it means I literally lived it.

And now it is time to move on.

I did live that life. Day in and day out for 13 years.

I know what it feels like.

I know the wonderful bits and the exhausting bits.

I know the romantic everything is perfect version and the muddy-boots-and-aching-bones-at-the-end-of-a-long-day-and-the-house-never-clean version.

And now I am allowed to say I actually want something else.

We moved to North Wales earlier this year, and something about being here has made me think differently about what “the good life” actually means to me now.

I still want trees.

I still want woods and gardens and birds and weather and muddy paths.

I still want to grow things.

I still want animals in my life.

I still want to know what season we are in without needing to check the date.

But I don't think I need to own and manage it all.

There is something rather beautiful about walking into the woods or sitting in a field and simply being there.

No fence to repair.

No feeding schedule.

No list of jobs waiting at the other end of the path.

Just Milo, the trees and me.

I can stop because a mushroom caught my eye.

I can sit somewhere because the light is lovely.

I can photograph a bee rather than immediately thinking about getting back to bed the chickens down before dusk.

I can experience nature and animals and that life, without always feeling responsible for nature and animals and that life.

That is new.

And I think I like it.

There is more room in my life now for other things too.

Writing.

Making.

Learning.

Filming.

Wandering.

Reading.

Exploring spirituality and old Welsh stories.

Following ridiculous little curiosities simply because they interest me.

Sitting with a cup of tea without simultaneously calculating which animal needs what next, or questioning if they are all eating normally looking healthy.

And I can sleep better at night without listening out for the noise of a fox, an opening of the stable door, an unusual noise, or the sound of an animal in pain or suffering.

It is beginning to feel less like I have lost a life and more like I have been released into another one.

And maybe that is what coming home can mean.  Not just returning to the place you were born (I was born in Wales, but adopted as a baby and taken elsewhere.)

But actually arriving somewhere, be it geographically, emotionally, or perhaps even spiritually, where you suddenly have enough time and quiet to hear yourself again.

I have spent a lot of my life believing that I needed to build the right circumstances around myself before I could finally settle.

The countryside.

The animals.

The house.

The right work.

The right version of my life that fit the vision or the dream.

And although the peace of the countryside allowed my constantly busy brain to experience  quieter surroundings, I wonder whether real peace was ever going to be found with so many living things being reliant on me - and me them in a way.

Perhaps peace actually partly comes from being willing to put some of the responsibilities down.

North Wales doesn't feel like an attempt to rebuild what came before.

And I don't want it to.

This chapter deserves to stand alone.

There is still growing and making and animals. And no doubt there will still be muddy boots come Winter.

But there is less weight to carry, meaning more wanderings, more curiosity, more time, and more sleep!

And a chance to decide what I actually want now, rather than what an earlier version of me once dreamed of wanting forever.

I still love that version of me who wanted the smallholding and I'm so glad that she and her children got to live it. 

But that doesn't stop her wanting something new now. 

Yes, she still sobs at the thought of leaving her animals, she still cries when she sees pictures of her goats, and she still can't bring herself to look through her past photographs because her heart feels so heavy. 

But perhaps coming home to Wales is on the way to healing that and releasing the weight that she didn't know she carried.

And perhaps, somewhere amongst the woods, the hills, the ordinary days and all this unexpected space, a whole new adventure is about to begin.