The Lady in the Back Row

Today, I will leave work again.

Again with that same explanation, the same look, the same quiet calculation of how much more time I can take before it starts to matter.

Third specialist appointment.

You would think by now there would be movement, a decision.

Something concrete.

A plan.

A shift.

But instead, it feels like standing still while everything that actually matters is moving in the wrong direction.

There’s something deeply wrong with a system that schedules alleged important appointments for a parent at school pickup time and calls it care.

As if life pauses neatly around their calendar.

As if children don’t need collecting, work doesn’t exist, and families aren’t already stretched past capacity.

So the kids stay home.

Again.

And I sit here wondering, will this just be another conversation?

We will have to tag team today as they want her in by herself for the first half , it is only me her and the kids.

Another “let’s monitor”?

Another version of nothing dressed up as something?

Because from where I’m standing, this isn’t abstract.

This isn’t theoretical.

This is watching your child fade in real time.

Slowly.

Relentlessly.

In ways that don’t fit neatly into appointment slots or polite clinical language.

And somehow, I’m expected to sit calmly in a chair and wait for consensus.

I’ve thought about calling triage this morning.

But what for?

To be told to go to the hospital?

To start another process?

To explain it all again to someone new?

Everything feels like a loop.

A system built on delay, repetition, and passing responsibility just enough to keep things moving, but not enough to actually change anything.

What I want, what any parent would want, is simple.

Not reassurance.

Not more discussion.

Action.

A line in the sand that says: this is serious, and we’re going to treat it that way.

So today, I will go again.

Not hopeful.

Not defeated.

Just done with pretending that this level of care is enough.

If nothing else, today has to move.

As always I have to be the one to force it.

Long. Tedious.

One of those days where you’re just watching the clock, counting it down hour by hour.

Two more days and then a break.

But underneath it all was this constant uncomfortable feeling. Nothing specific, just sitting there all day, like something not quite right that wouldn’t shift.

Dinner with the kids is never enjoyable for any of us while illness and starvation sits at the table .

And I’m just… exhausted.

Not just tired, but that deeper kind the kind that sits in your bones. The kind that doesn’t go away with a good sleep.

Carrying it all, watching it all, holding it together.

Two more days.

Up at 5:30 this morning.

No rush to move, just lying there for a bit, easing into the day, scrolling and letting the quiet settle around me.

A birthday party on today for my granddaughter’s friend, one of those simple, sweet lunchtime gatherings at a play centre.

Yesterday was all about preparation.

Getting things lined up for Easter next weekend, thinking ahead, organising what needs to be done so it doesn’t all land at once. That quiet kind of productivity that doesn’t look like much, but sets everything up.

My daughter is still sick.

That sits in the background of everything at the moment.

We are waiting for Tuesday, an appointment for a second opinion on her medication plan.

It is a holding pattern until then.

Let’s see how that goes.

I wake up to rain, not the heavy, miserable kind, but a soft, steady fall.

The kind that feels refreshing. Cleansing.

Like the world is quietly rinsing itself clean.

I pick up my phone and start scrolling. Just a quick look, I tell myself. But the longer I stay there, the heavier it feels. Everything looks like it’s shifting, like the world is tilting in ways that are hard to understand.

It’s unsettling.

And yet… most of us just keep going.

We make coffee.

We fold washing.

We answer emails.

We live inside the small, immediate day in front of us.

It makes me wonder, is the world actually changing that much?

Or has it always been like this, and now it’s just delivered straight to us, all at once, before we’ve even had a chance to wake up properly?

It’s Saturday.

I have work I could do.

Things waiting on that computer. But the thought of turning it on again feels like giving the day away. Like trading something quiet and real for something that can wait.

There’s cleaning to do too, always is. But I don’t want to spend today chasing tasks either. I don’t want to look back and feel like I used up a perfectly good day on things that don’t really matter.

So here I am, sitting in the in-between.

Not wanting to work. Not wanting to clean. Not quite sure what the right choice is.

Maybe there isn’t one.

Maybe the answer is simpler than I’m making it, just get up, have a shower, and let the day unfold from there.

See where it goes.

Let the rain do its thing.

Done with the work week.

Ran straight to Pilates.

Body showed up, but energy didn’t quite follow.

One of those sessions where you’re there, you’re moving, but you know you’re running on empty.

Still counts though.

It always counts.

Too tired tonight to really wind down properly.

No big rituals, no long exhale just that quiet, heavy feeling of a week that’s taken what it needed.

But there’s something sitting just ahead.

One more week… and then Easter. Two weeks of leave.

A pause.

A chance to stop running on the edge of tired and actually rest in it.

For now, it’s enough to just be here at the end of the week.

Showing up, even when you’re exhausted.

It is its own kind of strength.

Every human on this planet lives with uncertainty.

No one is promised tomorrow.

We plan, hope, and assume… but we don’t actually know what’s coming next.

Certainty isn’t real. It’s a feeling.

Humans have always known this. Long before everything was mapped out, tracked, and explained, people still woke up not knowing what the day would bring.

It’s not a modern problem.

What changes isn’t uncertainty, it’s how much we feel it.

Some people move through life without noticing it.

Others feel it in everything.

But neither group is more certain than the other.

Uncertainty isn’t something that’s gone wrong.

It is life.

The goal is not to eliminate it.

It is to live well inside it, to notice the right now, and keep showing up. ✨

Somewhere in the night, I had a dream that felt incredibly real.

A young love, who hasn’t been here for years.

Funny how the mind works… he kissed me, and I could still remember it when I woke up.

Sat on the step with a coffee in hand, looking up at the sky.

Clear, vast, full of stars constellations scattered across it, the Milky Way stretching quietly overhead.

The kind of moment that makes everything feel both small and significant at the same time.

It’s an office day today, so the calm comes early.

Before emails, before conversations, before the pace picks up.

Life can be very beautiful.

And it can also be very hard.

Both exist at once

yin and yang,

black and white,

night and day.

And maybe the balance isn’t something we find…

maybe it’s something we notice, in moments like this.

I am on hold to triage again this morning.

It’s become routine in a way I never expected, not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary.

You learn quickly that if you want something heard, it has to be recorded somewhere that matters.

I used to call the team directly.

That felt like the right way, go through the proper channels, trust the process.

But over time, you start to notice what actually works and what doesn’t.

There are steps.

Over time, you learn which ones actually move things forward.

So now, I call the hospital.

Not because I want to make a bigger deal of things, but because it already is a big deal.

Because blackouts aren’t something you leave sitting in a voicemail that may or may not be passed on. Because if I have to advocate, then I will do it properly, in a place where it’s logged, where it exists, where it can be acted on.

And while I wait on hold, I pull weeds.

There’s something steady about it. Simple. Honest.

You see what needs to go, and you deal with it.

No barriers, no gatekeepers.

Not everything is complicated. Some things, you can still pull out by the root.

The fence has taken a hit overnight possums doing what possums do and one of the tops is loose.

It’s the kind of thing that would usually sit in the back of my mind until it’s fixed.

Today, it can wait.

Some things can wait.

What can’t wait is being heard. What can’t wait is making sure that when something is wrong, it’s acknowledged somewhere that counts.

So I stay on hold.

I keep pulling weeds.

I follow the steps that actually lead somewhere.

And maybe that’s the quiet strength in all of this, not just enduring it, but learning how to move through it differently. Learning which doors open, and which ones don’t.

And choosing, every time now, the path that actually leads somewhere.

We went for a drive in the warm sun, chasing sea glass.

It turns out we picked the wrong time, the tide wasn’t in our favour. There were only tiny little pieces here and there, nothing like what we’d hoped for.

One of those quiet reminders that some things can’t be rushed… you just have to meet them at the right moment.

But the drive itself was beautiful. Windows down, warmth on my skin, nowhere urgent to be.

And in that space, my mind wandered.

I thought about something Khalil Gibran once wrote:

“Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.”

And it stayed with me.

How much of life comes down to that…….the things we don’t say, the words we hold back, the conversations that never quite happen the way they should.

Sometimes I find myself wondering where things went wrong. Replaying moments, questioning if something could have been different.

But the past doesn’t change.

It is what it is.

What lingers more is the silence. The distance.

The things left unsaid.

And the hardest part is how it ripples outward, touching the ones you love most.

That quiet sadness you can’t quite fix, no matter how much you wish you could.

Maybe it’s a bit like the sea glass.

Shaped over time, carried by forces you can’t control, and only visible when the conditions are just right.

We’ll go back again, at the right tide next time.

And maybe, in life too, there are still moments where what’s been lost, or hidden, finds its way back to the surface.

Until then, all you can do is stay open.

Say what matters when you can, and move forward gently.

Big plans yesterday.

I was going to go take us all for a drive, get out, for a change of scenery.

Instead, I came home… and stayed.

Probably a smarter thing to do anyway as petrol is skyrocketing.

I spent the day in the yard, getting through all those little jobs that had been waiting.

Nothing big, mowed the yard, watered my plants, washed the car, by the end of it, everything looked fresher.

The grass is greener now, slowly changing with the cooler days.

There’s something grounding about being in your own space, taking care of it.

Nice to just be home, no rushing, no plans, just a simple day.

And that is enough. ✨

My cat seemed happy for company, following me around rather than seeing me in and out for two minutes.

And today, a small step back into routine.

Pilates for the first time in a couple of weeks. (I’m the only one in the class that taps out lol.)

Sitting in the morning sun in my yard with the cat and the dog.

I feel like the luckiest person alive.

Nothing dramatic.

Small moments of peace.

Grateful for the privilege.