We all eventually choose the quietude of a life lived in contentment –
or so I assume – as, when the party is over and youth has waived goodbye, you shut the door on the madness and turn to your home, yourself, your age. Living the real part of your life, where you are alive in your peace and contentment.

This life where all the little moments of a day are all each and every one – enough.
The sunlight catching on a crystal, the opening of a blossom on the rosebush you planted yourself, the book you always meant to read there on the side table, you have time to read it. Your journal, a lifetime of journaling, there it is with it’s pen, waiting for your entry – you smile that quiet smile.

The cat purring on the doorstep carefully aligning it’s liquid body with the sun and the dog asleep on his pillow hugging his favourite toy.

Your husband sitting in his chair in the garden watching the lilies in the pond unfold, his book unread on his lap.

Those quite times when life is all contentment and beauty and every corner is filled with love – the things you have surrounded yourself with on purpose – the things that matter – everything you love filling your life to the brim.

This feeling of quiet joy, and that inner smile that blossoms on the face – when you know you have chosen right, that the recipe worked, that the mix is good and it is all as it should be.

You did climb that mountain, and you did work your guts out, you slogged your way through that swamp, you cried and hated, were perplexed and agonised and confused. You wondered what the hell you were doing so many times – it hurt and it stained you, it changed you and changed you and changed you.

And suddenly you notice the stillness, the measure of that change that happened somewhere, some time in the past, in some lost moment, unnoticeable in itself – life changed, life settled down.
In some unformed thought you realise that what you have now, in this moment, today – is something that started deep in the past and you can’t quite pin down when, exactly.
But you see that your life has a developed beautiful shape, a lovely form, your life is good – you got it right.

You got it right.

The world comes to rest with this knowing and you can feel the joy of it all welling up in your heart

you know in your soul that somehow, you built a good life.

the quiet life.