When Purpose Steps Aside (And Presence Takes Its Place)
Maybe purpose was never something to find, Gran. Maybe it was always something to notice.
Dear Gran,
Do you remember how you used to say, a quiet house never stays quiet for long? Well, mine did. When both girls left home, it was as if the walls exhaled, and I didn’t know what to do with the silence.
There were no slammed doors, no arguments over who’d borrowed the red jumper, and no shock discoveries that my vodka bottle had mysteriously turned into water. Just the rhythmic purr of the cat — smug with the sudden lack of competition — and me, trying to remember what it felt like to belong to myself again.
The Ache of Redundancy
I’d spent twenty-five years as Mummy, taxi, nurse, and maker of slightly questionable dinners. My purpose was stitched into theirs, my girls, my work, my home. So when they left, I found myself standing in the wreckage of routines I didn’t know I’d built my life around.
I had planned it, of course. I’d made lists, drawn up sensible new goals, even imagined what freedom would feel like. But when the day came, it felt less like freedom and more like redundancy.
I remember sitting on the sofa that first evening, glass of wine in hand, staring at the quiet and thinking, What am I for now? I’d built a life around being needed, and suddenly, nobody did. It’s funny how we say we want space until it actually arrives.
The Search for Purpose
When I left England, I told myself I was going in search of a new purpose. It sounded noble, adventurous, even brave, to start over, to reinvent. But looking back now, I think I was still chasing the same thing: proof that I mattered.
London had trained me well in that, success measured in productivity, worth tied to doing. Out here, the mountains don’t care what you achieve. They just ask that you notice.
The Empty Pens and the Quiet Questions
And yet, even now, there are days I feel lost. I sit on our balcony, looking over the empty pig pens, the weeds climbing back through the fences we built, and I can’t help but wonder why. Why build it all only to lose it? Why give everything — the time, the sweat, the hope — and then watch it dissolve?
Those are the moments I turn to God. Not with tidy faith or eloquent prayers, but with the same quiet confusion I felt in that silent house all those years ago. I ask Him to show me what I’m meant to learn in the loss, to help me understand the reason. I don’t always hear an answer, but sometimes there’s peace, a small, still voice that says, You’re not meant to know yet. Just be here.
I often find myself texting the girls at those times. Not because I have anything particular to say, just to remind them (and myself) that the cord between us still hums, even across oceans. The loss of the pigs and the loss of their daily presence seem somehow bound together, the ache of things you’ve poured yourself into, now living beyond your reach.
When Purpose Becomes Presence
Maybe purpose isn’t the goal after all. Maybe it’s what sits quietly beside us when everything else falls away, in the weeds reclaiming what’s theirs, in the dogs dozing at my feet, in the cool mountain air after rain.
I used to think purpose was something to chase. Turns out, it’s something you sit beside, even when everything you built has slipped through your fingers. Perhaps that’s what faith really is, Gran: learning to stay present in the loss, trusting that one day the reason will reveal itself.
From the quiet of the mountains, learning to live without needing a reason.
