Fulfilment - The Monthly Writing Challenge

 Written for The Monthly Writing Challenge set by @Ethical_Leader

Fulfilment

The end of a year is always a very pointed time for reflection. So many marvellous and wonderful things happen in our lives, some of which we don’t stop to notice, others work beautifully to counterbalance the challenges and frustrations we absorb daily. This year, like the last, has been one of adaptation to whatever the normality of the week might be and we find ourselves constantly buffeting around our plans until they take on a shape that will do, for now at least. Fulfilment of intended actions, longed-for dreams and desired realities may well have been put on hold or dimmed until easier times.

The year that has passed has been one of new focus for me. Thinking of what is present in my own circumstances, taking account of what brings me joy and what makes my heart feel happy, in all the aspects of my life. It has been a year of a significant re-evaluation of what fulfilment means to me. It hasn’t been easy, but it has been a journey rewarded with clarity.

A year ago, if you had asked me what would bring me fulfilment, I would have told you that I wanted to continue to live abroad, to find a job here that would suit what I can give professionally, to live a family life that we are used to and that we enjoy immensely. An easy and well-rehearsed answer. In that year, it has become increasingly obvious that what was once an easy path to those outcomes has become strewn with mountains we never thought we’d have to climb.

The pandemic and Brexit have made it very clear to me that the inability to travel freely and the magnitude of challenges presented to those in my family not blessed with my dual nationality are of enormous significance to us. We have been living a dimmed life of online calls, working hard to keep up friendships and family ties with those who are so dear and important to us. If we are honest with ourselves, we feel adrift, constantly pulling our raft to the shore to wave at everyone from a distance. The enthusiastic waving back does not fulfil the role of the ease and comfort of closeness with those who are our actual and chosen family.

I live and breathe education, it is my passion, it changed the course of my life and it is what I ‘do’. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather have as a profession, career or purpose. Despite the itinerant life that being part of a military family brings me, I have worked hard to continue contributing to education professionally, in voluntary and paid roles. This brings enormous fulfilment, but not the collegiality of schools or the electricity of a classroom. I had determined that I could get this in educational sectors other than those I was used to. After a range of experiences, including what was possibly the most soul-destroying career advice I have ever been given, I am no longer sure of this. The enormous positive has been making myself understand what has been so jarring, what has made me hesitate at every opportunity. Well, quite simply, none of those opportunities has made my heart sing, so far. All of them have made me feel like I have to reinvent myself, lose my authenticity and mould myself into a new shape. There is no fulfilment in that. Not for me. I know myself too well by now.

There is, then, the simple matter of what do I want my life, my family’s life, to feel like. The simple answer is, not this hard. The most profound lesson the past few years have taught us is that our life is not just the sum of us. Our lives are interwoven with those people and places that offer us unconditional friendship, the warmth of well-aged love, the safety nets when life won’t balance, the purpose and motivation to give of our very best for what we feel most passionate about. Without those, I feel profoundly that pieces of my life are missing. The joy is a little less deep, the sadness is expressed more quietly, the happiness is shared less widely, the sense of fulfilment feels more elusive. Our life is, in so many ways, so wonderful but in others it feels like a shadow of what it could be. We yearn to fully flourish.

What next? It seems very obvious, doesn’t it? A favourite motto is ‘never say never’, because that always rings true for me, so we’ll see... Whatever lies ahead in this new year, it is approached with a clarity that fulfilment will be the guiding light, that the solutions will present themselves to our peaceful hearts. May you find your fulfilment and your joy, too.