Written 11th October 2017
Today, I had an epiphany of sorts.
I realised that I have not been the best version of myself.
I have wasted hours and days on things that did not give me much fulfilment. I am not talking about the small pleasures. A film. A TV show. The occasional tub of cheap supermarket ice cream. Those have their place.
I mean the things that should feed your soul, but somehow do not.
I had a glimpse of what that kind of fulfilment feels like last summer, when I took my son and a few close friends into the woods. There was no real plan, other than to spend time with the children and let them do what children do.
The weather was warm. The wind moved through the trees. The children played. Thoughts of game consoles and phones disappeared. They dug holes, played on rope swings, got covered in mud, and seemed completely present.
The trees felt green.
The earth smelled good.
Time seemed to stand still.
Watching my son and his friends play in the dirt made me realise something. They still had the chance to build a fuller relationship with the world than the one many adults settle for. Their concerns shifted the moment they arrived there. No financial worries. No relationship problems. No pressure to perform. Just space, mud, imagination, and play.
I remember thinking that I needed to make those opportunities happen more often.
It does not take much. A little fuel in the car. Some food and drink. A bit of imagination. The UK is full of places where children can run, climb, build, explore, and disappear into the business of being young.
It helps them.
It helps us too.
Computer games have their place. I spent plenty of time in arcades when I was young. But we also went to the woods. We built camps and tree houses. We made swings. We played hide and seek, caught sticklebacks, looked for frogspawn, rode bikes for miles, and forgot about school for a while.
Those days felt endless.
It is too easy to let children drift towards screens by default. As adults, we have a responsibility to offer something else. Not constantly. Not perfectly. Just often enough that they remember the world is bigger than a room and a device.
My sonβs childhood is beginning to slip away. He will be twelve on Saturday. Next year, he will become a teenager. I do not want to hold him back, but I do want him to remember the loving, adventurous boy he is now.
There may only be another year, maybe eighteen months, before things begin to change properly.
So until then, I want to be more present. More deliberate. More willing to make space for adventure, dirt, weather, laughter, and time together.
He will always be my primary focus. And perhaps, by giving him more room to find himself, I will find a little more of myself, too.
Until next time,
adieu.