Pay attention. Life is happening now.

Don't Miss the Milestone Moments

Last week I flew to Wellington to surprise one of my boys.

Well, technically, the family surprised him.

He's in the fire service and happened to be on strike, so behind the scenes, we all quietly plotted and planned. We're quite good at that in our family. If there's an opportunity to surprise someone we love, we'll usually take it.

What struck me afterwards was that while we planned the surprise, we didn't really plan much else.

We simply planned to be together.

And I think that's where so many milestone moments are found.

Before I go away, I tend to do the same things. I make sure my work is up to date, my finances are in order, my home is sorted, and, most importantly, I keep myself healthy enough to enjoy it all.

And while I'm away, my lovely husband is back home taking care of our furry family and keeping everything ticking along.

There is never any guilt.

Never any pressure.

In fact, he's one of the biggest champions of the relationship I have with my boys.

He knows that bond was forged through a lifetime of adventures, challenges, laughter, tears and showing up for each other.

Much like Joe's tattoo, it's a relationship that has been forged in steel.

Strong enough to bend with life.

Strong enough to last.

On the build-up to the trips, I look after myself and do the boring grown-up things that make life run smoothly.

Not because I enjoy being sensible.

Because I want to be able to say yes when life offers me something wonderful.

And Wellington turned out to be full of milestone moments.

At one point, I was lying in the spare room of my eldest son's house and suddenly thought, "Hang on... when did this happen?"

When did I become the one sleeping in the spare room?

When did the little boy whose bedroom once contained discarded clothes, odd socks and the penguin wrappers become a grown man with a home I could stay in?

For a moment, I felt like the teenager.

And honestly, I loved it.

There were long chats with both of my sons and their gorgeous partners, who honestly feel like the daughters I never had.

We talked about life, work, plans, makeup, pink suits and all the wonderfully random things people talk about when they're comfortable enough to simply be themselves.

Those conversations filled me up in a way that's hard to explain.

Then there was my youngest son and his first tattoo.

His only tattoo.

A Bowie knife with the words "Forged in Steel."

I didn't sit beside him while it was being done.

Instead, I did what any mum would do.

I barged into the tattoo studio for a couple of minutes, had a look, informed the tattoo artist that he had better not be hurting my son, had a laugh, and then swiftly left before I became too annoying.

But those few minutes stayed with me.

The tattoo itself hit me much deeper than I expected. A Bowie knife. Forged in Steel.

Those words carry generations behind them.

We come from Sheffield in the UK, a city built on steel. My parents were cutlers.

My grandparents were cutlers.

Making knives wasn't just a job. It was part of our history.

And then there was the Bowie knife itself.

Whether Joe realised it or not, it felt like a little nod to me too.

Anyone who knows me knows I've spent decades listening to David Bowie. His music has been the soundtrack to so many chapters of my life.

So there I was, looking at this tattoo that somehow carried both our family history and a tiny reminder of my own.

To see those words and that knife etched onto my son's arm felt like more than a tattoo.

It felt like a connection to where he comes from.

A nod to the people who came before him. A reminder that strength isn't something you're born with.

It's something that's forged over time. I don't know if he fully understands how proud I felt in that moment. But I hope one day he does.

There was a grand, old movie theatre watching a Steven Spielberg film with my youngest son and his fiancée.

There was a loud football match at the pub.

A blue cheese pizza, red wine, coffee and ginger slice, The Midnight Expresso Cafe, on Cuba..

There was coffee with an old client I hadn't seen for a couple of years.

Sitting across from him, hearing about his life and sharing stories, I found myself saying, "How cool is this?"

Some relationships deserve to be honoured. Some people matter.

And sometimes life gives you the chance to remember that.

Then there was the eighties synth night, at San Fran.

Oh my goddess.

For a few glorious hours, I was seventeen again.

Dancing badly, black eyeliner, black jacket, and torn jeans.

Singing every word.

Wondering how songs I hadn't heard for decades still knew exactly where to find me.

It felt like stepping into a time machine.

And perhaps that's the thing.

Maybe that seventeen-year-old version of us never really disappears.

Maybe she's still in there somewhere beneath the responsibilities, the losses, the mortgages, the careers, the wrinkles and the years.

Just waiting for the right song to remind her she's still there.

By the end of the week, I'd started noticing something.

The milestone moments weren't coming from the activities.

They were coming from the noticing.

Psychologists call it negativity bias. Our brains are naturally wired to spot problems, worries and things that need fixing. It's part of being human.

Which means the beautiful moments can slip straight past us unless we deliberately stop and pay attention.

And that's exactly what I found myself doing.

Almost narrating parts of the week to myself and the kids, saying, "Hang on a sec, this is a milestone moment"

"This is special."

"I want to remember this."

"This matters."

Every time I did that, the moment seemed to deepen.

Like I was taking a mental photograph. Like I was telling my brain, highlight this!

What struck me most was that none of these moments was planned.

The milestone moments happened with ease, and because we all wanted to hang out together, a lot!

As my youngest, Joe and his fiancée dropped me at the airport, I felt that familiar ache.

The sadness that comes when something beautiful is ending.

And I realised that perhaps one of the biggest milestones of all wasn't watching my boys grow up.

It was realising how much I genuinely enjoy the men they've become and the women they've chosen to walk beside them.

We often say to each other, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

And that's lovely advice.

But these days I see it a little differently.

I'm perfectly happy to cry.

Because sometimes tears aren't sadness.

Sometimes they're gratitude.

Sometimes they're love.

Sometimes, they're what happens when your heart is so full it spills over.

They're love tears.

And as I hugged them goodbye, that's exactly what they were.

Now I'm back in Nelson.

Back to work.

Back to my walks, my routines and looking after myself again.

And that's another lesson I've taken from the trip.

If we want more milestone moments, we have to prepare ourselves for them.

Not by planning every detail.

But by creating a life that allows us to say yes.

Yes to the flight. Yes to the coffee. Yes to the movie.

Yes to the pizza, the crisps, the wine and the dance floor.

I often think I live life about 80/20.

Eighty per cent of the time I'm looking after the basics, doing the grown-up things, keeping myself well.

The other twenty per cent?

That's where the milestone moments seem to rise.

Life isn't just about creating milestone moments.

It's about creating a life that allows you to notice them when they arrive.

The happiest people aren't always the ones who have the most milestone moments.

They're often the ones who become really good at noticing them.

The good old days aren't always behind us.

Sometimes they're happening right now.

Sometimes they're hiding in a spare bedroom, beside a blue cheese pizza, on a dance floor singing eighties lyrics, or in the quiet pride of watching your son carry his family history into the future.

Waiting patiently for you to notice.

Love,

Caron