After a difficult start to the year following my dad’s death, the past month has felt like a quiet return to real life. Work, routines, and small signs of spring slowly finding their way back.
I’ve just come back from the UK after my Dad’s funeral, and I find myself in a quieter, more open season than I expected. Staying alone in a hotel, returning to France, and navigating perimenopause has given me space to reflect on where I am in midlife, and where I’m not rushing to be.
Sometimes life stacks several heavy things together, and the achievement isn’t growth or insight – it’s getting through the season without collapsing under the weight of it.
A quiet look back at the health changes that shaped my 2025. From a new Sjogren’s diagnosis to flare ups, Hashimoto’s and a recent bout of diverticulitis, plus navigating my Dad’s end-stage cancer. This is what it feels like to live with the things most people never see.
A look back at the life I had before moving to France. The choices, challenges and quiet threads that shaped the person I became before finding this slower way of living.
A quieter life has been unfolding here in France, and it feels like the right time to share a little of it. Nothing dramatic. Just an honest beginning.