the turning year
As an avid namer of feelings, I breathed a sigh of relief last week when a sweet twist of fate provided a constructive label to a mood I’ve been immersed in for most of 2025. The urge to express what’s going on has been rearing its head on repeat but the impetus and ability to communicate it with any clarity has been, for the most part, absent. Until a beautiful song stopped me in my tracks. Reaching for Spotify to hit Save and seeing it was called The Turning Year made me stop, sit down, breathe deeply and absorb this welcome lightbulb moment. This is exactly what I’ve been feeling – an unstoppable shift in life’s cycle, the unwanted ending of a chapter and the uncomfortable, weighted pause whilst I wait for the inevitable. The inevitable in this instance being the slow decline of our beloved Labrador Biscuit.
Since last December, stepping up the level of care she needs has been a blessing in as much as I get to spend all this precious time with her – a gift that I know the other two musketeers miss out on. And yet, the feeling of life being on hiatus has at times been frustrating and overwhelmingly sad. Knowing that we face an all too imminent future without her in it pulls me up short… make the most of these days - stop grieving in advance and trying to plan for something that is impossible to control. What’s the expression… lean into the feelings, just go with it? I grit my teeth and try often but in all honesty, I rarely succeed.
Existing in this weird holding period has left me unfulfilled, susceptible to unwanted influences and more adrift than I’ve felt in a long while. I’ve made numerous false starts at turning things around, including mining the feelings and writing about them… or opting for distraction by capturing moments of life’s simple pleasures and creating restful visuals for Instagram. A lack of headspace, enthusiasm and the old adage of “What’s the point?” generally means that neither of these creative outlets come to fruition. Previous attempts to describe the feelings include a deep lull, a creative fallow period, the sense of being untethered and the one I like the least – the uncomfortable feeling that right now, I lack a deeper purpose.
I think the heavy cloak of apathy hasalso been fuelled by losing the strength and fitness I fought hard to attain in 2024 due to a back injury that came on last Christmas. Despite treatment and ongoing physio, the pain from a dysfunctional sacroiliac joint appears to be something I’ll have to live with, for now at least. Although there’s a part of me that feels it’s no coincidence that the onset occurred at the same time as Biscuit’s health problems began. The expression “The body keeps the score” has never felt more accurate.
In other “lifing” matters, learning to navigate the ongoing departure and return of H to and from university has provided lessons in flexibility, continual readjustment, support when needed and more crucially, learning when I need to stay out of her day-to-day life minutia in the longer holidays. Is it me or is no one talking about this particular chapter of parental trickery? Here we are in her final degree year and the realisation that time is passing so fast vies for attention alongside the “What’s next?” inner chat that I’m desperately trying to suppress… until at least Easter 2026 anyway.
Menopause (or perimenopause – I honestly have no idea!) rumbles on into my 56th year, bringing with it a recent health concern that, whilst still being investigated, appears to be hormone-related and will probably require an HRT adjustment at least. I look forward to being at the stage when I can finally say I am “through it” and will be able to adopt the stance of the infinitely wise, somewhat witchy woman who just knows her shit. I thought I’d be there by now and yet still I wait!
All this to say, I’m fully aware that as the world begins to feel more insane by the day, in the grand scheme of things these are mere droplets of discomfort in a vast ocean of sadness, heartbreak and chaos. I try to counteract all that by noting and still taking comfort in the small moments of beauty – the smell and taste of a first morning coffee, the colours of the trees and fallen leaves here in the forest, the sharp icy cold of the sea as I lower my shoulders in for a quick dip and oh the joy of all the books that I’ve lost myself in these past few months. I don’t think I’ve ever read so much – my family-bestowed title of Reading Witch reigns supreme and our bookshelves groan under the weight of stories, inspiration and hours lost willingly to the thumbing of pages.
Another pressing question… what to do and where to go from here in terms of online presence? I’m certain I will retreat when the time to say goodbye to Biscuit comes… I feel grateful I’m able to do that. The business of content creation continues its bizarre metamorphosis which only serves to underline the reasons why I moved away from it as a reliable source of income some time ago. I miss the long form gentleness of the blogs that have eventually disappeared but have found solace in Substack, enjoying plenty of brilliant female writing. I have a couple of paid subscriptions but mostly I read the free content on the App… much of which seems to be published by those who used to write blogs.
I still seek out a little style on Instagram but in a different way than before – now preferring those OG street style accounts where people are snapped going about their day in cities around the world, or the feeds packed full of static images for outfit inspiration without influence. But my true catnip content of choice now lies with accounts that celebrate the recognition of small daily moments, the welcome cliches of slower living, cosy homes, cosy reading… anything cosy in fact, be it winter or summer. Nature, the coast, libraries, coffee, bookshops, 80’s & 90’s retrospectives – anything pertaining to Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyers, Meryl Streep… and dear departed Diane Keaton. That news was a hard one to take.
As we attain global levels of bat-shit crazy, I seek solace in the wholesome, the analogue… and the quietly hopeful feeling that ever so slowly, the tide is turning towards a recognition that not everything needs to be faster, slicker, louder and more attainable. Call it age, stage or a sign of the times… the feeling that one day the world will wake up, wonder what the hell it was doing and begin to see sense is a feeling I can lean into.
As for where I continue to publish content, I feel that the urge to create the kind I love for Instagram will return in full. Just for inspiration, creativity and fun. But in terms of writing, I’m thinking of letting the blog go when the site subscription comes up in January. Why? The cost for one thing, the fact that no one seems to read blogs anymore and maybe it’s a tie with my own past that has been fraying for some time and now needs to be severed.
I’m contemplating either sending out email newsletters or moving that function to Substack… what do you think? Where do you seek the kind of content that you want to see in this changing online landscape? I’ve published this post here on the blog, via an email and in a brief intro in this Instagram post (where you can hear the song that switched on the lightbulb!) to try and reach as many readers as possible. Not having posted anywhere for some time, I realise that it all may just disappear into the ether and a fair few spam folders, but if you are reading and have any thoughts on future content from me, I’d love to hear from you - either in the comments here or on Instagram or by hitting reply if you got the email.
Until next time,
Amanda xx
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