Peace

The corners of her mouth turned up to a half repressed and half embarrassed smile, she held it for a second then gave in and grinned. It's hard being 13 and have your dad say he loves you.

Booooom, a smile clutched from the jaws of disaster. I tell you I could be powered by smiles like that for a thousand years. I'd be lying if I told you that the preceding days/months/years hadn't been without 'challenge'.

I've been thinking about a conversation with a non adopter, non social worker friend. He's the head of something or other, quite influential and we meet, talk and I let him buy me coffee. We talked about resolution, journey, outcomes happy endings. I love talking about the grey areas, thats where we find the truth, not in the binary stances that seem to pervade or at least try to. Nobody lives in the binary and if they do they're usually extremists. I'm not sure why I'm telling you that, I think I'm just enjoying my thoughts spilling into words. Words from a song have been rattling around my mind, a lyric from a song that I heard a long time ago, it wasn't a great song and it's likely that you've not heard of the singer. The lyric was

'she's just trying to find peace in the struggle'

The words 'peace in the struggle' come to me all the time and I've not listened to the song for years.

The words return again and again, peace in the struggle.

It's taken years to give up this much of me, frankly its been a scary journey. Peace in the struggle.

So now I'm not sure who I am anymore, our lives now and in the future seem to be more uncertain than ever. At a time when my peers are mapping out the future with a level of certainty I'm no longer the master of my own destiny, these little people, little disruptors,  that I invited in have well and truly set me on a uncertain course.

Back to the smile, after a teary call from the GoodMrC and some frank words with the girl. I was pretty sick.  I looked at her as I drove her home and thought I should remind myself that I love her, so I told her, as well as the fact that she was a numpty.

The corners of her mouth turned up to a half repressed and half embarrassed smile, she held it for a second then gave in and grinned. It's hard being 13 and have your dad say he loves you.

I hadn't really felt it til she smiled. Seems like we found a little peace in the struggle.