Life is funny.

Starting all the way back in grade four, so when I was nine, I think, I often envisioned myself as the English heroine from old novels who inherited a family estate—in debt up to its window sashes, gloriously ramshackle, with a huge, wild garden, dogs, and a library.

Slightly eccentric, strongly opinionated, and surrounded by books and animal friends, I would play at farming, read copiously, and write my own books. (Um, yes, I may have idolized Beatrix Potter more than a little!)

That daydream version of myself persisted into adulthood with only minor variations, but I married young, had children, and loved the life my husband and I built. I was still a version of my childhood-dream self but also different. Aren’t we all?   

And then, almost overnight, I woke to find my life was nothing like what I had believed it was and had been so grateful for—or significant elements of it weren’t, anyway.

It was like being jolted from a dream, an incredibly lovely one, by an excruciating blunt force trauma.

It has been a tough couple of years, especially in the aftermath of Covid, which we all know was also . . . tough . . . (And both these “toughs” are the hugest understatements.)

But now, here I am . . . on my childhood family property. With a large mortgage on a lovely home that some would consider too big for one, and that, sure, could use some work—but more importantly, surrounded by a wildly gorgeous acreage that’s a jungle of greenery, flowers, trees, and abundant growth. I have dogs. There are different types of birds and a ton of toads everywhere, which I love. My kids still enjoy rummaging in my fridge, and my grandkids love to visit.

I am slightly eccentric. My opinions got a bit worn away over time, but I’m working on that. I have dear friends. I’m surrounded by books. And I write them!

All of this, and some other recent events, make me wonder . . . Do we call things into our lives by our fantasies? Are childhood daydreams actually tools of fortune-telling? Or are similarities between where we end up and our early imagining just coincidence? Or maybe it’s just that childhood dreams are sometimes returned to us as a form of comfort . . .

Either way, I am grateful and blessed to be embarking on this new-old dream life, even if it’s still a bit surreal. I was deeply sorrowful to awake from the dream of my marriage, and a part of me may always grieve what I thought was, but that is, after all, how dreams work. We can’t hold onto them. They always end, eventually. It’s inevitable. And then we’re surprised by new ones. There is a lot of joy in my new dream and in those people who participate in it. 

So that’s me these days . . . in a very new stage and phase of life. It’s been . . . something.

If you’d like to read fictional stories about other women going through immense changes at midlife (another curiosity: that I would pen such missives before I found myself in the same boat!), please check out my latest novels—and my apologies for being remiss and not updating you about them in a blog post much earlier than now! Just click each cover to find out more.

Thanks, as ever, for reading!
💕 Ev