I want to tell you about a dream I carried for years.
A house in France. Green shutters. A different kind of life.
I used to look out of my kitchen window on a grey English morning and think: there has to be more than this. And eventually — after years of waiting, talking myself out of it, talking myself back into it — we actually did it.
And it was beautiful. The light in France in the early morning is unlike anything I’ve experienced. Warm and golden and slow. Nothing like February in Hampshire.
But here’s what I didn’t expect: the hard part wasn’t the logistics or the upheaval or the uncertainty. The hard part was deciding that what I wanted was worth the disruption. That the dream — not the sensible choice, not the thing that made logistical sense — deserved to actually happen.
For decades I’d been building a life around what worked. What was practical. What kept things smooth. I’m good at that — I’m a nurse, I’m a mother, I know how to hold things together. But somewhere in all that holding, I knew I was waiting too.
You Are Not Going Backwards
In my Motherhood Studies training, I studied a framework called the Maternal Self in Motion, developed by Dr Sophie Brock. It describes identity using the metaphor of a train journey — tracks, stations, carriages. The idea is that our sense of self isn’t something fixed we return to. It travels. It moves through stations of change, picks things up, sets things down, arrives somewhere new.
The women I speak with often say they want to get back to who they were. But that woman isn’t behind you. She’s further down the track — carrying more wisdom, more clarity, a harder-won understanding of what she will and will not accept.
You’re not going backwards to find yourself. You’re going forward, into a version of your life that can fit who you’ve actually become.
What France Gave Me
I loved France but it didn’t last. We came back after just a few months — Charlie needed his friends, his language, his home, his school system. People said, Charlie will be fine, just stay! But I knew he wasn’t fine. It simply wasn’t going to be right for him. He’s thriving now and is about to be Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk — which feels like an excellent life outcome.
But I’m so glad we went.
Going to live my dream gave me something I didn’t even know I needed: proof that I could choose something just because I wanted it. That the life I wanted was worth the uncertainty of actually trying. And I still feel like I lived that dream, even if just for a short time. It’s changed my life going forward — no more waiting.
And now I’m planning my next dream. Walking in the mountains.
So Let Me Ask You
What do you want? Not what’s sensible. Not what will please everyone. What do you want for your one life?
Sit down with a piece of paper — not your phone, actual paper — and finish this sentence without editing yourself:
“The life I actually want looks like…”
Write for five minutes. Don’t stop. Don’t cross anything out.
Then circle the one thing that surprises you most. The thing you wrote and then immediately felt you shouldn’t have.
That’s the one worth paying attention to.