Space

White space. Down time. Me time. Alone time. Time with my thoughts. Years spent in absolute silence but for the quiet knocking of my friends and family outside the world I built for myself...


“We’re here when you are ready.”

So I’m familiar with white space and down time. More so perhaps than I should be. My down time wasn’t a “healthy,” level. It was an obsessive need to be alone and cut the world out.

How times change. When I feel the need for downtime now, I drop my work and instead of locking myself away and locking the world out, I take my boy out to play football or ride bikes. He’s incredible company and for me, that is my me time now.

More recently, that has involved Chloe too. When I feel stressed or tired or a little under the weather, instead of craving alone time now, I crave quality time... with them. Both of them. Chloe and our son are my world. But there is of course still a need for time alone, albeit much less these days. Everyone needs silence sometimes or just fifteen minutes alone with their thoughts. Time to hear yourself, to listen to the contents of your head without the noise of the world going on around you.

Chloe needed that this week.

Her life has been essentially turned upside down in the past 18 months. She has gone from being someone who lived with her girlfriend of many years, so someone living a newly “straight” lifestyle, got engaged, became a Mother to a seven year old boy and got pregnant (all good things, of course). But even though those are indeed awesome things, it’s a big shift. Her life is so busy now and this week she just craved alone time.

The beautiful thing about that was that less than 24 hours later she came back feeling fresher and happier to see us than ever before.

Do you think sometimes we just have to be alone sometimes to learn to appreciate the people in our lives?

Chloe... take as much space as you need whenever you need it. I’m going nowhere :)