Worries for the future

I feel my heart feels heavy at the moment with worrying about the future. I know that I am very lucky in many respects, I have a loving husband, a wonderful son and supportive family. We have jobs and we make ends meet, our home is nice and we don't go without food. I know that there are so many people less fortunate, I know this.

What is worrying me right now is what does our future hold? At the moment I feel our hands our tied financially and of course this has a bearing on our lives and I feel our happiness. Take just earlier, I popped out of the flat to take the bin out.  I was immediately struck by how warm it was outside and how lovely it must be to sit out in the garden, at this time of the day, just relaxing letting the world go by. I walked down the road thinking how nice it is to be outdoors in the summer, seeing as we spend so much of our time indoors during the winter months. Unlike other countries, our outdoor living is comparatively short lived.

I have these terrible guilty feelings lately, for Beastie. Before he came along my priorities and outlook were different. I felt that we could change most aspects of our lives if we so wanted to. I have upped sticks and moved a few times around the country and have never been afraid of embracing change, I like change. What has struck me now though is that although we would dearly love to move, we are financially unable to. Every now and then I have a brain wave about how we can get out it but it always ends up with the same conclusion, we can't.

My worries are centred around what kind of childhood we can offer Beastie. I don't expect a long sweeping garden complete with a tree house (although that would be nice), I would just like some outdoor space with some sunlight and a place for him to run about and let off steam, mess about with a sand pit and water table and career round in his car, if he so wishes. Our childhoods mould who we are and I am aware of that lately. At the moment it feels like we might be living here for many more years, something which we never banked on when the market was at it's peak when we bought. We were lucky to get a mortgage when we did but it feels like a mill around our neck now. The fact we didn't choose a house will always niggle away at me. Quite simply we were living the lifestyle that suited us then, not really thinking ahead to when two become three.

Now the babyhood stage has passed we are faced with much more, a small person is being guided by my husband and I. We decide what he sees and experiences and I wonder whether he is experiencing what he should. I dread him having memories of being confined to a flat and even worse having no real memories of outdoor fun (at home) when he was little. It doesn't help the fact that I don't like the area that we live in and I don't always feel comfortable visiting some of the local parks and even walking around the area surrounding us. I worry what life will be like when Beastie is a teenager and what living in this area will be like then, times have already changed so much from when I was little, it's scary.

I guess we always think the grass is greener on the other side, that's part of human nature. If we didn't want to try and better our lives and look forward to new things then life would become a little dull and samey. I wonder whether we are ever truly happy when we reach our longed for goals?

What I have concluded is that something needs to change in our lives, I know that much. More than anything I need to make a concerted effort to take Beastie out more, to try and enjoy as much as the great outdoors can offer us. We need to focus on getting more financially secure (even though it feels like an uphill struggle) and look to the future with a positive outlook. It's just remaining optimistic and a glass 'half full' type of approach, something that's not always the easiest thing to do.

Nb. This is in no way meant to make anybody think that I don't know how lucky I am, compared to all the problems around the world, my problems fade into insignificance. It is just an account of my worries at the moment.