05/10/2026
Filling time is not the same as living.
Do you ever feel as though you’re simply filling time?
Not necessarily unhappy. Not ungrateful. Just not where you want to be.
I miss the simple, everyday things.
Batch cooking on a Sunday. The weekly shop. Baking something just because I feel like it. Reaching for a book from my big bookcase, one I’ve read before but kept because I knew one day I’d want to revisit it.
I miss sitting in the garden watching the birds. Cloud watching from my hammock. Potting herbs and plants. Trimming my dad’s rose.
Such ordinary things.
And yet, perhaps it’s only when the ordinary disappears that we realise how much of a life is built within it.
Almost a year ago, we decided to sell our home of 24 years and move to Scotland. A quick sale seemed to promise a quick move, and in our excitement, and perhaps our haste, we began dismantling one life ready to build another.
I left a job I loved. Sold my car. Packed almost everything we owned. We gifted furniture, plants, the freezer, garden things, my beloved hammock and my dad’s rose.
The kitchen cupboards became bare with the promise that somewhere new, cupboards would be filled again.
Then, just before exchange, the sale collapsed.
And here we still are.
Waiting for someone else to walk through the door and love this home enough to make it theirs.
Hindsight, of course, is a wonderful thing. You’d think by this stage of life I might have learned to listen more closely to that quiet voice that says, slow down, trust your instincts.
Instead, I find myself drifting a little.
Filling time in a place I have already emotionally outgrown.
There has been plenty of living within that waiting. This year has brought travel, adventure, new places, conversations and experiences I’m incredibly grateful for. But I’m beginning to understand that you cannot keep moving simply to escape the feeling of standing still.
Eventually, you want somewhere to land.
The past eighteen months have held a lot. Losing Mum. Leaving work. Packing away a life. Plans changing. An uncertain future. Trying hard to remain focused, positive and grateful while quietly wondering when life might begin moving forward again.
And I am grateful.
I have an incredible life. I know that.
But gratitude does not mean we have to pretend we are content with everything.
As I approach 60, perhaps I’m simply more conscious of something I once took for granted:
time.
Time is priceless.
And there is a difference between passing time and inhabiting it. Between keeping busy and feeling purposeful. Between going somewhere and actually feeling that you are moving forward.
Maybe that is what I miss most.
Not the hammock, the books, the baking or even the garden.
I miss the feeling of being rooted in my own life.
I don’t know when the next chapter will begin.
For now, I’m still here. Still waiting. Still hoping. Still trying to trust that life will shift again soon.
© Karen Smith | The Quote Collective
