Feeling rooted

Last weekend I went to my old school reunion down in Hertfordshire.

I wanted to share with you my experience.

It’s quite a long journey and mainly driving in the rain - I almost turned back and thought about making my excuses; never to return again. I dont know why I had these thoughts as I had been looking forward to going. None the less I felt really resistant and I wasn’t sure why. I stopped off for a bit and changed my mind about ten times before deciding to continue. The main reason was due to how far into the journey I was and how long it would take to get back home.

So I had decided to proceed; If I am honest this was with a loose intention of saying goodbye to old memories and letting that period of my life go. Again, I wasn’t really sure where these thoughts were coming from or why they were surfacing now.

The school itself is set in magnificent grounds and has now been converted into a Glen Eagles style hotel.

I arrived early and took the opportunity of wandering around the changed yet still familiar surrounding, recognising specific trees, outbuildings and the walled gardens. I wandered through the back lanes and all the out of bound areas that were forbidden as a child (obviously I had ventured through them as a child too).

It felt good to walk within these trees and plants acknowledging some of these being here for hundreds of years and being curious about all the changes that they had witnessed and all the other beings, including us humans, they had encountered along the way.

What I hadn’t prepared myself for was the bitter sweet emotion that raised up through my body and pricked my eyes. I felt strangely comforted by this familiar land. Its been 40 years since I was at school here and yet I could feel a secure comforting blanket being wrapped around me.

I realised that I have been feeling somewhat lost after losing both my parents and subsequently my family home. Although I had not lived at home for 37 years - it was a rock, an anchor that was always there, always solid and always constant in my life.

I hadn’t realised how much I had been feeling adrift and somewhat nomadic - lost and cut off from my roots and the yearning I had to rekindle this.

Going back to these familiar fields, recognising specific trees as well as the building somewhat pulled my internal scatterness back into my centre core and I felt like I had come home. (Not to mention old friends of course.)

I guess its still standing, alive and with many memories and connections that I still share today; those childhood days that sometimes feel so long ago and yet still play a significant part of my life today.

A week later and I am feeling completed earthed and rooted once more.

I am so glad I didn’t turn back and carried on to be fulfilled through this day.