I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.
Is it just me, or does everything feel a bit much just now?
And I don’t mean in a dramatic, everything-is-awful kind of way. Life is good. I have so much to be grateful for and I know that.
But still… everything feels a little heavy.
Every time you fill the car up, it costs more than you expected. You pop into the supermarket for a few things and somehow spend £50. Bills, mortgages, running a business, the news, the constant noise of social media. There always seems to be something else to worry about.
And sometimes I wonder if it’s my age.
Maybe this is what happens when you get to this stage of life. Your children are growing up, your parents are getting older, work is relentless and suddenly you're thinking about things you probably didn't give a second thought to ten years ago.
But talking to people - customers, friends, people at the market - I don't actually think it is just me.
I think a lot of us are feeling it.
And strangely, it's made me appreciate the really ordinary things more than ever.
A coffee with a friend.
Walking the dog when the sun actually decides to appear in Scotland.
Coming home after a ridiculously busy day, shutting the door and knowing you don't have to go anywhere else.
A glass of wine while dinner's cooking.
Putting the lamps on when it gets dark.
Lighting a candle.
And I know I own a candle company, so of course I'm going to say that. 😂 But I'm not even really talking about candles.
I'm talking about home.
That feeling of making your own little corner of the world somewhere you genuinely want to be.
Maybe the little things aren't actually little
We're constantly being sold the idea that the good bits of life are the big things.
The holiday. The new kitchen. The fancy restaurant. The new car. The massive achievement.
And they're lovely.
But most of our lives aren't made up of those moments.
They're made up of completely ordinary Tuesdays.
Cups of coffee. Walking the dog. Dinner at the kitchen table. Someone making you laugh when you've had a rubbish day. Getting into clean bedding. A candle burning in the background while you're doing absolutely nothing exciting whatsoever.
And maybe that's why, when the outside world feels a bit uncertain, those things suddenly feel more important.
Not because we're burying our heads in the sand.
Just because we can't control everything.
We can't control what fuel costs next week. We can't control what's happening halfway across the world. We can't control half the things we read about every time we pick up our phones.
But we can control some things.
We can phone the person we've been meaning to phone.
We can go for the walk.
We can make the nice dinner.
We can stop saving the good bottle of wine for some imaginary occasion.
And we can light the bloody candle we've been “saving for good”. 😂
Because maybe this is good.
Maybe an ordinary Thursday night at home, with the people you love and nowhere else you need to be, is actually one of the good bits.
So if everything has been feeling a little bit much lately, I don't have any great words of wisdom.
I'm just going to keep appreciating the small stuff.
Because right now, I think the small stuff might actually be the big stuff.
Jo x
