Category Archives: soul musings

The Backpack

I watched a film over the weekend—one of those tender stories about love, loss, losing and finding yourself again.

There was a particular scene that lingered.
The lead character reconnects with a woman he once loved in high school. They reminisce. He asks if she ever made it to Paris, the city of her dreams.

She smiles, a little sad.
Tells him she bought a backpack—specifically chosen, with little pockets for everything she’d take on her journey. She placed it by her front door, ready to go. But life kept happening. A sick family member. A work emergency. The wrong season.
So the bag sat. Unused. Unmoved.
Eventually, she grew tired of seeing it—tired of being reminded of the thing she never did. So she packed it away at the back of a closet.

It’s still there.
She never saw Paris.

The Dreams We Bury

That moment sat with me.
How many of us have a proverbial backpack waiting by the door?
How often do we tuck our dreams into the back of a closet—not because we can’t chase them, but because the excuses are more comfortable than the unknown?

We say:
“I don’t have the time.”
“I have responsibilities.”
“I’m too old now.”
“I’m scared.”
“I missed my chance.”

And then… decades slip by.
The yearning is still there. But it’s twisted now—threaded with regret, steeped in what-ifs.

But What If It’s Not Too Late?

What if it was never about missed chances?
What if it’s just been about timing?

What if we stopped staring at the closed door of the past, and simply opened a new one?
What if the question became:
Why not now?

Filling Up So I Can Pour Out

What I’ve come to learn is this:
The more I move toward my dreams, the more I can give to others—not in money or material things, but in what truly matters.

Love.
Presence.
Wisdom.
Laughter.
Patience.
Grace.

When I fill my own cup, I have something meaningful to pour.

A Letter to My Younger Self

If I could go back, I’d whisper:

Live, my girl. Really live.
Follow the wild call of your own path.
Stumble, rise, dance barefoot in the small joys.
Don’t be afraid to fail. That’s how the soul finds her rhythm.

The Way Home

The longer you resist your own nature, the harder the return.
But even if you wander for years, the journey is never wasted.

Because once you find your way back—once you arrive in that sacred space where you truly belong—even the hard days feel like home.

“Don’t pack your dreams away. Dust them off. Wear them in.”
— Wild Soul Notes

Raising Teens While Riding Hormonal Tides— or — What Was God Thinking?!

“What was God thinking when He decided I should be raising teenagers whilst going through perimenopause? It is the ultimate clash of hormones!”

A random internet post, or divine comedy? Either way, it hit home.

I read something funny the other day. It was a woman asking, “What was God thinking when He decided I should be raising teenagers whilst going through perimenopause? It is the ultimate clash of hormones!”

I was pondering this, as it’s very much a reality in my life. I’m pushing fifty and have three teenagers in the house. One biological son of 15, a stepson aged 14 and stepdaughter of 13. I find that mostly I just don’t seem to have the patience I had when I was in my twenties and even thirties.

Did I Miss the Timing?

Then the thought came that perhaps if I had children earlier in life, I wouldn’t be in this situation. So I started looking at history.

In biblical times, childbearing began shortly after marriage. It wasn’t uncommon for girls to have their first child between ages 13 and 16. But many continued having children up to their 30s and 40s—assuming they survived childbirth and remained fertile.

In the 1800s to early 1900s, women typically had babies in their early twenties. But that began to shift. By the late 1900s and into the 2000s, childbearing age steadily rose. Today, many women only begin having children at 28 or older. This shift is due to education, careers, contraception, autonomy, delayed marriage, and fertility technology.

Maybe There Was a Plan

Looking at this, I began to wonder: perhaps our Creator never intended for us to go through major hormonal transitions while our children were in the thick of their own. As with everything in creation, maybe there was a plan for it all to flow in harmony.

I had my biological child at 33. And while I wouldn’t trade that for anything, the truth is: teenagers are navigating a wild space between childhood and adulthood, and they need us to be patient, steady, wise. But it’s hard to show up that way when your nurturing hormone—oestrogen—is waving goodbye at a rapid pace.

If we go back to basics—without moral overlays—humans become physically capable of reproduction around 13. Which means, in the past, people would’ve been raising teenagers when they were still in their physical prime. Absurd in a modern context, yes, but biologically and emotionally? It kind of makes sense.

Did We Get Too Clever for Our Own Good?

Did we become so clever, so advanced, that we messed up nature’s rhythm?

Life has an invisible beat. And humans, for some reason, keep missing it—then land up playing a completely different tune, and we wonder why we feel confused, out of sync, and frustrated.

Life has an invisible rhythm. And humans, for some reason, keep missing a beat.

But Here I Am

Look, what’s done is done—and I’m not getting out of this raising-teens-while-riding-hormones situation. Honestly, I’m also glad I didn’t have a child at thirteen. That would’ve been its own kind of chaos.

Yet, I’m sensing more and more that the only way forward is to remember. To tune back into the ancient rhythm, the one still humming beneath the noise. To let go of my mind for a moment. And allow my life to flow again.

This way, we may just all make it through this crazy ride, mostly intact.

PS. Condolences to hubby, standing on the side, watching the proverbial shit show, with no idea what’s going down!