There are seasons in life when the things we love have to take second place.
Not because they no longer matter. Not because we have lost interest. Not because we are lazy, disorganised, or lacking commitment.
But because life, in all its noisy, demanding, complicated glory, sometimes walks into the room, puts its handbag on the table and says, “Right. I need your full attention now.”
For me, one of the things that has had to take second place recently is this blog. Writing and blogging are my passions.
The truth is that passion is important. Deeply important. Our passions remind us who we are beyond our roles, responsibilities and shopping lists. They give us a place to express ourselves. They help us feel alive, creative and connected.
But passion still needs time. Passion still needs energy.
Passion still needs a little corner of the mind that is not already occupied by appointments, worries, work, family, ageing parents, grown-up children, health, money, meals, messages, laundry, and the mysterious admin that appears from nowhere and breeds overnight.
Even when our children are grown, like my daughter has, motherhood does not simply clock off. It changes shape. It becomes quieter in some ways, but deeper in others. We still think. We still worry. We still support. We still carry invisible threads of love, concern and responsibility.
And then, on top of motherhood, there is life itself.
Work changes. Bodies change. Families change. Priorities shift. We enter new chapters before we have properly closed the old ones. We make plans, then life laughs and hands us three more things to deal with before breakfast.
Sometimes the thing that gives us joy has to sit patiently in the corner while we deal with the urgent, the necessary, the emotional, the practical and the unavoidable.
And I think we need to stop treating that as failure.
It is not failure when a woman pauses. It is not failure when a woman chooses survival over performance. Women are not machines.
We are human beings with full lives, complicated hearts and limited hours in the day and sometimes the most responsible thing we can do is not push harder, but pause properly.
That does not mean giving up. There is a big difference between abandoning something and allowing it to breathe. A passion that matters will usually wait for us.
It may gather a little dust. It may look at us reproachfully from the corner, like an unfinished craft project or a book we keep meaning to read. But it does not disappear simply because we had to attend to life.
Your dreams are not cancelled because you had to deal with real life. You are allowed to have seasons of output and seasons of quiet. But delay is not defeat and a pause is not the end.
Have a good week.
