Just a bit wiser

I left Mount Beauty amidst some confusion and angst for our trip to Melbourne these last few days.

Some of Rosie's artwork - sometimes I feel like a four-headed mama too...

My head was full, as it often is for this Mama, but there was something more too. Something that for a while I couldn't quite define.

And then, over the course of an afternoon, just as I was packing, working, organising (and to be honest folks stressing), I felt it clearly - a lack of support. A feeling of alone-ness.

Not loneliness though. It was a feeling of having only myself to rely upon. That no-one else had the resources available to help me should I need it. It was an unsettling feeling.

And I wasn't sad per se, but this Mama was grateful for the change of scene nonetheless, and the chance to let that feeling sit without judgement or trying to change it.

So, as the girls played with their Noni and Pa and we viewed the wonderful exhibition of Monet's garden paintings, that feeling slowly changed and I began to feel a different part of me emerge. A stronger, clearer part of me. For it is through challenge and adversity that we learn and grow.

Our four days in Melbourne have now come to an end. And although we've said goodbye to family we're now back in our peaceful haven of Mount Beauty, surrounded by peaks dusted in the last of the Winter snows, the sun pouring into the valley and bike riders beginning to take over the roads again.

I think we all breathed a sigh of relaxed contentment as we settled back into out home and garden, together as a family again. It's nice to leave, but it nicer to come home again, richer for the experience and just a bit wiser too.