A pandemic activity Nº1

I am so happy  - I've just got the first vaccine against covid19. My age group isn't entitled to get a vaccine yet, but an older person didn't show up for his or her appointment so they had one vaccine available. I got a phone call that if I can come immediately, I will get the vaccine. Of course I came immediately :) 

I haven't been working due to the pandemic for whole six months. And another month of non-working luxury is in front of me. I will start working again in the first week of June. 

So I thought I could share with you my favourite things that I've been doing during the pandemic. Things, that I always wanted to do but never had enough time. I will write one activity each day. First I wanted to write one post, but the post would be too long :) 

So here it is, a pandemic activity Nº1: Daily walks in the nature. I went for a walk almost literally every day (the only exception were few days when it was raining cats and dogs).  

I installed on my mobile a step counter, my daily average number of steps for the last   180 days:   10.750 steps. All those steps were done in the nature, there are many beautiful walking trails very close to our home. 

It feels just great, having enough time for a daily exercise.

A box of coloured pencils & love

There are some gifts that mean a world to me. This is a story about my beloved box of coloured pencils. 

It was 18 years ago when I just moved into a new flat with my husband. We went on a first shopping together in a big supermarket. While shopping for food I noticed a huge pile of boxes of coloured pencils, each box contained 24 coloured pencils. The brand was Jolly... it is an Austrian brand that has been hugely popular since my childhood.  When I was a child it was impossible to buy them in my country (=ex-Yugoslavia), so once my parents drove to Austria and smuggled them (together with coffee and all other stuff that was impossible to buy here). I got a box of 12 Jolly coloured pencils when I was 7 years old and I had those pencils for more than 10 years. 

I told this story to my husband. And I told him that all my childhood I wished to have a larger box that would contain 24 coloured pencils, not only 12. But I never got them since they were to expensive.  

My husband took one Jolly box and put it into the shopping charts. I asked him what was he doing. He told me that he wanted to buy me the large box of coloured pencils that I wished my whole childhood. 

I was deeply touched. I told him that I didn't need the coloured pencils. And he replied that it didn't matter, that he wanted to buy them anyway. 

I think this is the gift that means the most to me. 

And it wasn't true that I didn't need the big box of coloured pencils. I needed them, I just didn't know I needed them :)

The lavender

 

 

There was something beautiful that I noticed today. My husband and I planted 15 lavender bushes last year, this winter was very cold so I wasn't sure if lavender survived. 

I noticed today that all our lavender already have some little fresh green leaves. This means that they live! I admire their resilience and the determination to live. 

I want to believe that I am like lavender. 

*** 

This is our lavender (with a bumblebee) last summer:

Paying forward

 

The topic about childlessness has become less and less important to me as the years are passing by. Writing this blog has helped me infinitely. Sometimes I wonder - does my writing still help anybody? I am not sure, but then sometimes something unexpected happens.

I see that someone reads (almost) all my post from the last 9 years within few days. I am deeply flattered, when I see that...  

Or I get an email from a young woman, a decade younger then me, who has just quit all infertility treatments and is accepting their childless life.  And she says that writing to a real person, who went through the same feelings ten years prior, helps her. 

I love that. This means I am still a needed part of this community. I may not be a mother... but I love the idea of being a big sister to someone who is in the hardest times of accepting childless life.  

I see that as paying forward... I will be forever grateful to all the women who had walked this path before me and have helped me. 

*** 

I have heard a beautiful sentence recently. "I'm not here just to be a mother, I'm here to be me." 

Sometimes I overthink - what is my role in this world since I am not a mother? 

Being me is just enough!