On remembering to attend to your life

On micro-trips, finding parts of you + feeding nachos to stray cats

“You tell me: I’m going to another country,
another city, another body.”

The City, Nathalie Handal

A bad photo of the jacaranda blossoms I’d forgotten about

Hi Friend,

When my friend Helen asked me how my five-day trip to Cyprus was last week, I told her how I’d spent time with cherished school friends, had long beach lunches and balcony suppers with family, spent time with my mum whose Parkinson’s has accelerated more than my brain can catch up with. A trip to the Cyprus Press Archives for a poetry project.

“And,” I emailed, “Did I also say that I managed to neglect my real life? “

H’s reply: “Sounds to me like you were attending to it.”

(I know, she’s very wise).

I loved this idea. Attending to my life.

Taking care of it. Looking after it. Paying attention to it. 

It countered the frantic narrative I’d created around the trip:
Guilt at being away from my kids.
Panic at taking four days out of my business.
Niggly voices asking, “Who are you to take this time?”

Somehow, attending to my life felt like an intrusion on the carefully constructed scaffolding of my days.

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2. Being bi-cultural, “going home” is bittersweet.

You don’t want to visit the place you carry in your body.  

You want to be there.

To live a real life.

To pick up a thread of a past self.

A past life and make it present.

To come back to belonging.  

This was the first time I’d stayed in Nicosia without my kids and husband since becoming a mum. My eldest is 17.  

I get that, despite their deep connection to the island, my kids’ Cyprus is turquoise beaches and Top Gun ice cream, endless souvlakia and a token cultural day to the mountains. They don’t want to listen to my uncle’s version of our family history or to gossip with Auntie Nat over endless frappés.

I do though. This trip felt like a moment of freedom to be with that part of me.  

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3. One evening, I met with my school friends. In our favourite bar, we drank vodka tonics, fed nachos to stray cats, talked about the smell of the art room at school, and classmates who have died. Who was bullied and, who was kind. Who moved to LA. Who didn’t. About divorces and disappointments and hopes for our kids. About leaving. And coming back.

Somewhere, under the lilac jacaranda blossoms that I’d forgotten line the streets in May, I found a part of myself I hadn’t realised I’d neglected. A part I didn’t know I was looking for.

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4. I’ve written about my messy relationship with time before.  Call it eldest daughter syndrome. Or A-type personality.  

I’m defensive about my time to the point of obsession. I panic about being out of integrity with it; of being careless with how I spend it.

To reclaim my time, I build iron walls around it.

Case in point: I get very weird about merging work and personal time. Despite working at home for years, I rarely “just put a wash on” in office hours. My husband loves this trait.  Or schedule personal appointments between 10am – 4pm. I’ve had my vehicle tax reminder on my desk for a week. Because this sits firmly in the category of “life admin”, I push it back as a 4.30pm job, then promptly forget to take care of it till the next day.

Did I ever tell you “freedom” is one of my core values?

I’m not good at jokes. This one, I get.

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5. Last year, a dear coach and friend suggested I consider an annual “micro-trip” to Cyprus. This was the end of last summer and I’d missed not going home for a year. I was scattered and depleted.

She told me: “I want you to see that for you personally, taking trips to Cyprus are vital for your mental and physical health. You’ve been wanting to feel “centred”, and Cyprus is literally where you feel as if your roots grow down into the earth. Don’t even feel like your trips there are selfish/princessy/optional.”

What is it about tending to the things that matter most – vital relationships, our health, a creative project we’ve put on hold until we have more time? Or for when the kids are back at school? When we settle into our new promotion?

We put them into the category of “selfish/ pincessy/ optional” rather than “essential and sustaining”?       

And keep neglecting the truest parts of our lives.

For accountability, I’m committing to a micro-trip home next year. And the one after that.

Also, I just paid my MOT. It’s 10.26 am.

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Thank you for being here! And for staying with an essay I wasn’t sure I was ready to share yet. Tell me about a part of your life you’re looking to attend to in the comments below. Or hit reply if you’re not on Substack yet.

I’ll be back next week with a short, sweet hit of creative caffeine.

With love,  
Antonia xo