Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well, I’ve been ‘fraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I’m gettin’ older, too “Landslide”, Fleetwood Mac

I had a very strange experience yesterday. I was at a routine hospital appointment, waiting in a corridor to be called in. I suddenly remembered sitting the the exact same spot, outside the same room with my daughter when she was about seven years old. She will be twenty two tomorrow. I was overcome with the feeling that, if I turned my head, I would see my little seven year old daughter, wearing her stripy school pinafore, floppy hat and navy blue leather T Bar shoes sitting there next to me. I could feel her there, swinging her little legs, so palpably. I felt almost overcome by sadness at how quickly the years have passed.

In June 2025 I had three children living at home. My daughter was on work placement for her degree, my oldest son was preparing to move into a house with his partner and my youngest hadn’t yet gone off to university. Now they are all living away from home and my husband and I are rattling around in our house. Seeing my youngest go off to catch the train back to his university town after Christmas was hard, he has a whole other life that I know almost nothing about now. He is quite guarded about what he shares, everything is “chill” and fine apparently, I hope so.

I went to a drinks party at London Bridge on Saturday and, on the train back, there was a family of four sitting next to us. I could only see the husband and two grown up children as the mother was in my blind spot. All I could see of her were her badly scuffed boots, frayed trousers and shabby handbag which was odd because the rest of her family were dressed head to toe in expensive clothes. When we reached our destination the family stood up to get off as well and I saw the woman’s face and immediately realised that I knew her, she and I even had coffee at each other’s houses when my youngest son and her daughter were tiny and attending the same play group. I wondered if she spent all her time looking after the rest of her family and had failed to notice that she could do with a bit of TLC herself. I nearly said hello but then the penny dropped that it had been seventeen years since we had last spoken. We did that polite thing of pretending not to recognise each other. She was probably thinking that I haven’t worn too well myself! How could almost two decades pass so quickly?

I am feeling a little melancholy after Christmas. I think I probably also have a touch of Empty Nest Syndrome. It is my day off and I visited my parents who now need my help far more than my children. There is a solitary snow boot in the corner of their bedroom, it is covered in a thick blanket of dust. It’s been there for years. Today I decided I was going to insist it is finally thrown away. Dad stopped me saying Mum, who is totally housebound, might decided to go for a walk in the snow. In one boot? My highly intelligent Dad seems to have convinced himself that Mum is going to miraculously recover from her Alzheimer’s disease if he looks after her well enough. I did manage to throw away a dozen cans of air freshener though so my visit wasn’t a complete decluttering failure.

I have a letter from my grandmother in which she says time passes so quickly. It has been in my jewellery box for forty years and I have never been able to bring myself to re-read it. Now I know exactly what she meant. It seems as if in the blink of an eye a year has passed. As I drove home from the hospital a beautiful song called “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac came on the radio, it summed up my mood perfectly.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Cover photo – A timepiece from the V & A Cartier exhibition