Sunday evening, lying on my bed wrapped in a blanket my mother crocheted for me. The wind is battering the window making the panes shudder, the guttering outside creaking in protest. There’s a storm coming tonight they say, the biggest storm for twenty years. I’m leafing through the pages of my old journals. 2003, 2004 and 2005 already relived and tear-stained — now I’m wandering back through 2006. I hadn’t intended to read so far, but I want to know how the story ends. I turn the page and read a description of my imagined future life and immediately my heart starts beating faster — everything I’d written describes my life as it is today. Where I live, what I earn, the work I do, the places I have been. My achievements. My goals. The way I spend my days. All of it was written out on October 25th 2006. But what makes me smile the most are the pieces of the future I hadn’t even imagined: my love for my nephew, the deep friendships I treasure. Work that feels meaningful. The connections I’ve made. I couldn’t have imagined any of that, yet it came to be anyway. I open my current journal and set my pen to the paper: what future life can I conjure up now, knowing that something even greater will arrive, the pieces of the future I can’t yet imagine…
Pieces of the future
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This is a beautiful post. I have cried throughout my journals as well. I am inspired to write about the future, my future. Write it down, make it happen. There is something to that.
Dearest Susannah, this is wonderful and beautiful, both of which you are as well. Honey, you’re future’s so bright you’re gonna have to wear shades!!!! Sending you so much love!! xoxo
I’ve written so feverishly for the past year and a half – since losing my fiance – that I haven’t spent a great deal of time going back over it all yet. Every now and then I do, but still there is so much written that I have not gone back to. It’s interesting to read this post today, because I am actually in the process just this weekend of beginning to write down and imagine my own future more specifically… I’m an artist following a similar course as you it seems after my loss… moving into a new direction to help others through workshops, writing, and art. I’m imagining a future that would have never happened had he not died… one full of work that has great meaning to me. One day, I will be where you are today… looking back from a little bit farther ahead, and I know in my heart, I will be amazed.
Thank you, for always being a little bit further down the path than I, you’re book This I Know gave me great hope in the first months after his death, and you are one of the people who has inspired me to help others in my own way with creativity and art. Lots of love.
lovely post susannah. i too journal and have been writing goals for myself these past few weeks. i can only hope that years from now when i look back i will feel that thrill of having my dreams come true….
Susannah,
I just read your previous post and was going to reply to that but then read this one and just had to! So many messages here. ‘Ask and you shall receive’…’After every storm comes a rainbow’ and my Granny’s favourite ‘What’s for ye won’t go by ye’! Cheesy…hell yeah…but you have proved that you can create your perfect life even in the face of disaster and dispair. You are so brave opening up the past (hope you are having lots of ‘Be good to Susannah’ days) but if you hadn’t you wouldn’t be able to see how far you have come.
You are making magic lady and I know wonderful things are coming your way. The lesson for us all.
Trust all will be well.
Take care of you x
thinking of you love.
I wish I’d written journals earlier and kept them. What a moment that must have been to see your dreams and wishes came true . . . and so much more.
thank you, honey :) x
ohhhhh YES YES YES
oh, this makes me smile…amazing the power we all hold within us. and i just love how you appreciate the surprises you hadn’t yet imagined.
Beautiful and inspiring.
Just returned from seeing my spiritual director (who is steeped in the Enneagram) she told me, “You are even better than your ideal.”
What a gift!!
I’m passing the sentiment to you, my fellow 4.
Dream big and know the reality will be even bigger.
Hope I’ll feel the same soon soon soon
Simply beautiful!!
Beautifully written. I love the way the photo and writing are so well matched.
Dear Susannah,
I am a great believer that the universe brings you what you truly need. So when your post arrived in my inbox I knew it was ‘a sign’. For years I have written about the life I want and yet there is always something holding me back. I have taken some leaps forward in the last year by changing career, but I have neglected both my physical and spiritual life to improve my work life. So I want to say a big thank you for reminding me to chase the bigger whole life dream. x x x