Filling the Gaps

I have always found it a little curious how routines sneak up on you. You start doing something once or twice, and before you know it, the dog’s giving you side-eye because you dared to skip his bedtime biscuit dance. He has very firm ideas about the order of things, thank you very much! My son was exactly the same as a little boy. Solid routine, down to the minute. He’s loosened the reins a bit since becoming a teenager (as much as one can between gaming, friends and fridge raids), but that comfort in the familiar is still there. Maybe it’s in our blood. Maybe it’s just human.

I think it’s why, when life does that thing it does… it throws your apples out the cart and leaves you blinking in the mess of it, it all feels a bit… off-kilter. It’s not just the big stuff that shifts, it’s the small, seemingly unimportant moments that carry weight that honestly, you likely never noticed before. The first cup of coffee, not brewed for two. The soft hum of the TV, no longer shared with someone next to you. It’s strange how silence can feel heavier when it’s in the places where laughter, general chit chat, or even simple silent presence used to be.

Don’t get me wrong, the bones of my day are still the same. There’s still laundry to be done, sourdough to be baked, stock to be packed and other work to be finished as well as the ever-growing list of small tasks that make up a life. But the evening… hmmm, the evenings. That’s where the hole is. I keep wondering why I don’t just carry on doing in the evening what I do in the day. I mean, I’ve got enough to keep my hands busy and my head full. But somehow, as the sun dips down and that first stretch of evening sets in, it’s like I fumble a bit. Like I have forgotten the words to a song I used to hum without thinking.

Which brings me back to this. Writing. I’ve always loved it. It’s been the place I go when things don’t quite make sense, and the place I go even more when they do. I used to blog daily, often twice a day, and it gave shape to the blur. For reasons I can’t even really explain, I stopped. Life got noisy, and then quiet again, and in that seesawing I forgot to return to the one thing that has always made me feel anchored. Until now.

So maybe this is the start of something (again). Or maybe it’s just a nudge. I’m not making grand declarations, because I am just not in a space of any form of hard commitment at the moment. We have all made promises to ourselves that had the shelf-life of a ripe avo, lol But I do think there’s value in deciding to turn the evening into something again. Something intentional. Something more than the leftover thoughts of the day floating around like a lost fart.

We all have chapters that close unexpectedly. People leave, things shift, routines unravel. But it’s what we do with that empty space that determines how the next bit unfolds. Sometimes the simplest thing, like picking up a pen or making a cup of tea for one without feeling the ache of it… can be the beginning of a whole new rhythm. One we didn’t plan, but maybe needed all along.

It’s funny how we so often wait for things to feel right before we begin, when most of the time, it's the beginning that makes things feel right.

Often it’s not the big moments that change things, but the small ones that quietly slip in and start to stick. A new way of ending the day. An old habit picked up again. Life shifts in those ordinary bits, without much fuss. And maybe that’s all it needs. I already feel better just having written this.