House Diaries

#35 A time of self-reflection, as Pamela Anderson once said, and paint colours I'm loving at the moment

Petals!

First off - I’m so sorry for the delay in last week’s newsletter. I’ve been absolutely flattened by the worst cold. You know the kind: it starts off innocently enough — a little tickle here, a little sniffle there — and before you know it, you’re horizontal for days, wrapped up like a sickly Victorian child, feverish and miserable. And just when you think you’ve survived the worst of it? Boom. It casually morphs into sinusitis. Because, apparently, a humble cold and a raging fever weren’t quite dramatic enough for my body.

While I was on bed rest (and by bed rest, I mean wallowing in tissues and lukewarm tea), I did what any sensible adult would do: doom-scrolled, read a few things I can barely remember, and rewatched The Banshees of Inisherin for the third time. If you haven’t seen it, seriously - stop whatever important thing you’re doing and go watch it immediately. It’s exquisite: bleak, beautiful, darkly funny. And in its final moments, one of the characters quietly delivers a line that lodged itself somewhere very deep in my fevered, sinus-blocked heart:

"Some things, there’s no moving on from. And I think that’s a good thing”.

At first glance, the movie depicts the division in Ireland through a tale of a broken-down friendship. But that one line - that fierce, quiet truth - sat with me long after the credits rolled. And I want to sit with it here, with you, before we gallop off into paint colours.

Over the past year, I’ve been doing a lot of what I can only describe as shedding. Life shedding. Habit shedding. Relationship shedding. A slow, tender moulting of things that no longer quite fit. Much like a skincare routine, where you suddenly look at that old serum - the one you bought years ago, when it seemed essential - and realise it no longer does a thing except take up precious space on your bathroom shelf. That serum, much like some old habits (and, let’s be honest, some old relationships), was part of my life because it had always been there. Because I thought it was needed.

But, just like skin, we change. We mature, evolve, thicken, thin, glow, or bristle depending on the weather of our lives. And part of that evolution, painful as it sometimes is, is recognising what must be left behind. Not because it was never good, but because it has simply done its time.

When it comes to friendships, especially, I've learned something about myself: once I'm over something, I’m over it. It’s not bitterness, and it’s not anger, it’s just... done. It’s knowing that love, care, nurture, they can’t be things you pick up and put down when it suits. For me, love needs tending. It needs showing up. And if it's been left too long — if there’s been too much silence, too much taking for granted — there’s no stitching it back together neatly.

I don't believe in forcing it. In patching over the gaps with small talk and pretending nothing happened. Some friendships, just like old routines, were beautiful for a time. And then their season ended. And that's not sad - it's natural. It's human.

Some things, there’s no moving on from, and that's a good thing. It's a sign that we loved properly. That we showed up properly. And when it wasn't returned, we chose ourselves.

There are some things you shouldn't move on from. The memories, the lessons, the golden little scars that make you who you are. But there are many things - expired serums and expired relationships alike - that you absolutely should.

So if you’re in the middle of your own season of shedding - of letting go of things that no longer feel like home - please know: you're not being cold. You're not being harsh. You’re making space for the life you’re meant to live now.

Now, speaking of making space, shall we talk about the paint colours that have me completely undone at the moment?

Ok let’s talk Earthy Buttery Yellows! I don’t know why I’ve capitilised “earty buttery yellows” but it seems appropriate because YELLOOOOWWWWW is so good at the moment. Ok, here are some that I cannot stop thinking of: