Today. The richness of today almost overwhelms me and my words feel clunky as I try to articulate all that it means.

 

Today is not only International Women’s Day, which of course is wonderful reason in itself to celebrate, but, most importantly, it is our son’s birthday. And, for me, a monumental one to boot.

 

Today is the day our son turns seven. So spine-tingly significant today I shall I write it thus: Seven.

 

I remember myself Seven. I remember so vividly being Seven. It was like a key awakening within me as I began to find my sense in the shifting of space and time. I began to understand my self a little more in the world and absolutely loved what that gave me. I felt a little more grown up. Not in a desperate urge to become so. Just more in the universe showing me my evolving place. A certain tapestry of myself, that has continually fed me to now and will undoubtedly beyond, started to form. And I was in command of the needlework.

 

I began, at Seven, to feel a sense of my own personal dance between inner-world and outer-world. And began to get excited about what lay in between. Seven is where the seeds of this preoccupation, I remember, began to germinate. My love and fascination of this indiscernible space.

 

I remember before, I remember my earlier years, but more with life, stuff, being done to me. More, as if being carried, my feet not on the ground.

 

At Seven, I remember beginning to own, or possibly, possess myself with more stead, a natural assertion.

 

It was fraught, to say the least at home, as I grew up, and part of this very pertinent sense of my development, was, I’m inclined to think, part of my survival. And my husband and I together create a very different home from the one in which I was brought up in. And. Our son is not me.

 

Our son, possibly, does not need so quickly to gather such distinctness and, if he does, he may not cherish it as fondly as I. However.

 

In the last six months, that have lead to this day, I have witnessed inside him a glorious maturity manifesting effortlessly bone-deep within. His sense of self and connection to those around has started to take new form, almost intangibly, yet I know, or at least suspect, the tone and poise it sits with within his cellular system.

 

The dynamic of this stunning growth is awesome to watch. And I have crazy excitement for how this new learning, it’s roots in the mud and small shoots that are now visible, will travel over the next seven years. And the next. And those all the way down the line.

 

For I am a great believer in Seven year cycles and I know, with ecstatic excitement with which I want to shout from the rooftops, that today I am beginning to venture too into a new one of my own.

 

From birthing our beautiful boy, to opening myself up in ways I only dreamed of before. From surrendering to everything unknown in motherhood and trusting, knowing this day would be here and I could look back and say Yes. Yes to all that I yielded to, even on the times when those around advised otherwise. Even on the times when I doubted my intuition and wobble in my own sense of being.

 

I had wanted to come here, as I do many tides into the future, and not regret. And, with gratitude, I don’t.

 

I feel also so keenly, the past Seven year cycle, that I have been gradually forming new from, is closing. I literally feel the circle, the ball of this magical energy drawing together and departing. I am being released and, like our son, who today is stepping, into his next stage, I too, am strongly aware of a different stage being set ahead of me to tread. With a little more knowing perhaps, a little more trust, that can only come from time.

 

I am excited too for our new chapter. He and I. Our foundation together that has lead us here now, and, from here, poignantly, individually. He, from young child, to now someone I don’t yet know how to describe. A little more savy? Together? Aware? All of these fall short of the harnessing that I see within him. He inhabits a land in between that is so worthy of a title for it is a proud and charming place to be.

 

And too, me. I don’t know how to describe these feelings of new and old coming together. I feel, after seven years of being a mother at home with our kids, now is my time, to spread my wings beyond our nest. My work with these beauties, I know, is not complete by far, but the energy of my attendance is shifting. I feel more able to have one foot at home and the other stepping into fulfilling myself through my career.

 

Until now, I haven’t felt able to do this, without knowing, whilst focusing, whilst listening to a working life outside of the home, that all my energy would keep turning back to our children.

 

I am fortunate, I know, to have been able to do this. We are graced that my husband has earned enough for us to get by to enable my work to be at home with the kids. Yet, our situation hasn’t been an easy ride. Our spending has had to be shrewd. Food and bills have been our prime outgoings. Luxuries have been minimal. We’ve taken a handful of holidays in the last seven years. We’ve dined out and treated ourselves infrequently and had to spend every penny earned very, very wisely.

 

But, personally, I feel we’ve chosen life-content over life-style. I knew, deep-down, we would never get these years back, the kids or us. And, despite the multitasking myth that as women we’re meant to be so adept at, my preference has always been to learn and concentrate on one thing at a time, rather than juggling too many hats all at once. Motherhood has been my choice and I know, for many, this is a privilege.

 

And so to Seven.

 

Seven years of our magnificent boy. All that you have taught me and enabled me to become, I am GRATEFUL, more than I feel I can ever fully convey to you. It has been wholly magical, in all it’s shapes, colours, moments of madness, stress, worry and joy. I SO look forward watching you enfold on the next and am so curious what our journey will bring.

 

Wow. What a gift!