We are in the process of moving. It’s been thirteen years since I attempted this. In the meantime I have accumulated a loft full of folders from teaching, a store of toys now outgrown, assorted bed linen that may come in handy and furniture and fittings to comfortably fill a three-bedroom, nineteen-forties council house. I’ve grown a garden, found plants that will thrive in the dry summers of Kent, filled beds to overflowing with herbs and wildflowers. I have found decorations to fill my bookshelves and windowsills. It is a comfortable home, it speaks of who I have become and who I am becoming.

As well as this it’s doubled as my work space. Since giving up employment two years ago to get well again I’ve made spaces here for the various strands of work I offer. I have them just so. It’s possible to teach and seamlessly move onto a reflexology treatment without blinking. Things were coming together nicely thank you.

I have found, over the years I’ve been walking a path with grace, that when I get to this point I will often be challenged. It is as though God sees and knows that it’s time to stir the cauldron. She reaches out and whispers in my ear. And the shift begins.

So we are moving. We are going to live with my parents. There are many good reasons for this and the biggest is that my mother is living with dementia and my father needs back up. I love my parents. They are in my opinion uniquely supportive and understanding. They have always encouraged my brother and I to follow our dreams. They do not bat an eyelid when we share our latest project or plan, when we give up steady jobs to train as an actor (him) or tell them we want to work as a tarot reader and village witch (me). For a long time I didn’t want to make this choice (although I could see it might be needed). I wanted to be independent, to keep “my life”, to grow “my dreams”. And then I couldn’t. This is needed. I want to be there. I want to do whatever I can for as long as it’s needed.

Which all sounds very noble and lovely. When in reality it’s just a bit hard. I’m sad to leave the beautiful place where we live, the place where I remembered my soul-self and the land which allowed that. Mum and Dad are having to turn their house upside down. My eldest son, who lives on the autistic spectrum, is anxious and stressed. And heaven only knows how the cats are going to cope…I want it to be ok. I want the right choices to be easy. Because it’s the right Choice, the good and loving choice, I want it to be a skip through the daisies process with wall to wall sunshine and soft-focus lenses.

Reality check. This is real life. These are real emotions. They are complicated. I am still surprised that I can feel both happy and sad at the same time.

So on we go. It is a great adventure in many ways. I am learning to unpick the life I’d made, to dig down to the bones, to uncover what is needed, it turns out not half as much as I had thought. Most of the “stuff”is just window dressing. Nothing wrong with that but not essential.

Over the next few weeks we will birth a new life. It feels like a new phase is opening. The next stage of the journey. A great social experiment. I know we will laugh a lot. I know we will rub each other up the wrong way. I know I will have to remember not to take myself too seriously. Home is where you find it.  I hold it in my belly, in my blood, in the soles of my feet. Home is the green earth who anchors me. And the moon who ever watches my days and weeks.