Although we moved back to the dust and chaos of our house, I’m here with the dog at my parents’ again today, enjoying the quiet and the heat. It is always good, and often imperative, to find an escape from the storms that life works up for us, but is there a way to be at peace, even in the midst of it?

Or so says Heraclitus. I came across this saying recently and it made me think. Why is change so often viewed differently? Why do I dislike it so much?

One dimensional.

The way you see things or experience them is not the same as anyone else. Recently I have been learning that. Have you ever heard one event being related by two people with entirely opposite versions of what they thought had happened? Yesterday I realised, to my shame, that I have been so wrapped up in my poor health that I forgot everyone around me is involved too. Nothing in life impacts just one person.

On another note, it is easy to pigeon hole children into the path you assume they will go. My son used to talk about engineering but when asked directly in the summer he said he was interested in medicine! Never say, ‘but I thought you liked’… Always let people step outside of the person you have pegged them as.

The question, ‘what do you do?’ is a very restricted question too. No-one deserves to be pushed into one word. You might be self-employed, part-time, retired, unemployed or too unwell to work at all. But what are you besides that? So much more.

We sang a kids’ song yesterday, ‘you are a promise, you are a possiblity… You are a great big bundle of potentiality’. It’s slightly silly but actually, true. Never think that you are all out of chances. Don’t let anyone push you into one dimension. If someone asks you that constraining question I would follow it up with ‘and what else?’ Life is a multi-faceted, surprising mix of experiences.

You are not one-dimensional.

And no-one else is either.

There is always something going on in our lives that we cannot control. I was talking about that today with someone and they said if the queue of traffic was too slow-moving, they would just get out and walk. To do that was to re-take control. (I didn’t ask about the other poor person left to mind the car!)

You can carry with you.

Another way. You need to remember that, even when you think you’re all out of chances.

There is one lily in my parents’ pond. We have all been watching and waiting for it to show off its petals. One day it did, but since then the leaves are refusing to unfurl. It could be the cold weather, it could be the changing season, but nothing will get it to open.

I am dreadful at driving anywhere new. I remember going somewhere a couple of years ago. I put it into Google maps, turned the radio off and the spoken directions on. Unfortunately when I am nervous I tend to turn before I need to. That day, I heard at least twice the words ‘make a U-turn’. And then what? I drove on, blindly hoping I was heading in the right direction. A great approach, don’t you think?

When life is always changing, it is so important to have unchanging things close by.

I have lost count of the blog posts I have written that talk about the kindness that I have encountered at hard times in my life. But this past week I have been hugely outdone.