Star Wars Day. May 4th. For someone who has famously never seen Star Wars, there is a certain amount of irony given how many things have happened to me on this day to make it memorable:
- 2004 – Started my PwC career.
- 2009 – Found out I was pregnant with our first child.
- 2010 – Met some people who’d become incredibly important to me.
- 2016 – Won a magnum of vodka.
- 2024 – Held the second CharlieFest which saw my daughter sing with my late husband.
Quite a list eh? It’s weird looking back at it all now. I had no real concept of where my life was going to go. Did I envisage still being at PwC 22 years later? No, I don’t think I did. Did I envisage that I’d be solo parenting my first child? No, I definitely didn’t.
It’s why in 2026, I’m taking stock a little bit on this day. I turned 45 at the end of March and somehow, we’re now in May. I’m not entirely sure where April went. Is this a sign I’m getting old? Or just a sign that my life has been insanely busy lately? I think back to my birthday, which is also the anniversary of my late husband being taken to ICU, and realise it was almost a sign of where the next month was going to go. Numerous conversations with solicitors regarding the sale of my nan’s house. A hospital appointment with my daughter. A trip to my late husband’s memorial bench. And the innocent question from my daughter, “why are you crying Mum?” Nothing like spontaneously bursting into tears on your birthday while driving down a motorway because life gets too much for you.
And that’s how my life has been lately. A bit too much for me. I haven’t really stopped in weeks. I don’t consider myself special, so many people have chaotic, busy lives. But I do consider myself to be in an unenviable position of trying to juggle widowhood, solo parenting, working full time and caring for my grandmother against the backdrop of vaguely attempting to build a life for myself in my own right. The latter is something I’m becoming more and more acutely aware of as my daughter ages. Just last week I had to accompany her to her college enrolment. She’s thinking about learning to drive in a matter of months. And this week her main GCSEs start. It’s a pretty intense six weeks coming up.
Yet as her future starts to take shape and new beginnings happen, as a family, endings have happened. We’ve said goodbye to the house my grandparents bought in 1964. Just a £50 deposit secured that house back then. But for a multitude of reasons, it was time to sell. I underestimated just how emotional it would make me on those last few days. I’d been able to be quite productive at emptying the house, doing multiple tip and charity shop runs and managing all the administrative side of things But the penultimate day I was in the house, I burst into tears. It took me by surprise. I’m well aware that the material and physical items don’t really give you the memories but leaving the house that had been a constant throughout my life was tough. And despite material things not being the most important, I did have a smile to myself on Saturday when my grandad’s barometer showed me what the weather was going to do. I remember being fascinated by it when I was a little girl and it was one of the very few items I took from the house to keep. It doesn’t go with anything in my house, it’s incredibly old fashioned but it goes with me. It goes with my memories. It’s a part of my history.
The day the house was completed, I didn’t really have time to think about it or process it. As luck would have it, work was exceptionally busy and so I was able to distract myself. This was also the day after the sixth anniversary of my late husband’s death. There felt something poignant that the last day we owned the house as a family was his anniversary. Maybe April 19th will start to become a date for me going forwards as May 4th has been. But to be fair, my main memory of this date is no doubt enough to last me a lifetime.
I wrote on that sixth anniversary about the power of love and hope. And that is what continues to carry me through my life. I know from one of the last conversations I had with him, someone who would have been eminently proud of me for knowing that the first Star Wars film was actually called A New Hope. In a way that’s what Star Wars Day symbolises for me. A new hope.
Let’s look back to 2004. Starting at PwC was scary. I remember feeling that I needed breadcrumbs to find my way around the office in those first few days and weeks! It feeling like home and being such an important part of my life wasn’t something I really considered. There was a certain element of hope in joining the firm though. Hope that I’d find my path. But looking back now, I viewed it as work. Not necessarily a place I’d forge a career and do multiple different roles. I’m now halfway through my latest role and it’s teaching me so much. It’s been so good for me. And it’s also brought me into contact with new people. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone who didn’t know my story. It’s a bit weird when that happens now, I’m so used to working with people that do know what happened to me, that I almost forget that not everyone does. For so many people the pandemic feels like such a long time ago, that hearing my story can take people aback.
And another new hope happened in 2009 with that pregnancy test. Don’t get me wrong, I was incredibly scared too (flashback to 2004 and being scared at PwC). But the hope outweighed it. Hope that we were finally going to be parents after a considerable time waiting for it to happen. I remember looking in shock at that pregnancy test. When you’ve longed for something for so long, when it finally happens, it’s hard to believe it’s real. But real it was and at the start of 2010, our daughter was born. The juggle of parenting and all of life’s challenges began in earnest!
But that juggle took on a different meaning for me in 2020 when my husband fell ill and then lost his life. If I thought starting at PwC or becoming a new mum was scary, that was nothing compared to the fear I felt when my late husband died. Could I really parent our daughter without him? I like to think I’ve done an ok job over the past six years, but that juggle is ever prevalent. Take last week for example. Work was the busiest it has been for a while, I thrive on it in a way, but it meant that I was working very long hours and barely contactable. “Is this an emergency or are you just saying hello?” was how I answered the phone or started a call with my daughter if I noticed a missed call from her. Fortunately, she’s very understanding and we made it work but it didn’t mean that I didn’t feel the mum guilt.
Except it’s not just mum guilt I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve felt daughter/sister/friend/author/blogger/volunteer guilt too. The notifications mounting on my phone because I’ve needed time or headspace to deal with them all and I’ve just not had either lately. I’ve lost count of the messages or calls I’ve started with “I’m officially rubbish” because that’s how I’ve felt. The guilt that I haven’t done enough to market my book and to continue my late husband’s legacy. The worry that I should be doing more in my volunteer roles. For the avoidance of doubt, this isn’t a woe is me blog. I don’t want you to get the violins out. This is simply a real and honest blog. Because of how I’ve been feeling lately. The pressure to juggle has felt a lot. The fear of change and worry for the future and what comes next for us has been intensifying. If you’ve been one of those people thinking that I don’t seem like myself or you’ve been waiting for a reply from me, know that I really am sorry. It’s honestly not you. It’s me.
But as well as being insanely busy last week, I also had a moment of clarity. I simply cannot be all things to all people and do everything at the same time. Hope returned. Because while selling my grandparents house is inherently sad, it’s also meant we’ve been able to guarantee some stability for my nan. That in itself is freeing. Yesterday I went and visited her in the care home, safe in the knowledge that there are no battles for me to face for her for a while. We sat in the garden and made the most of the weather. My author life might have taken a hit lately, but that’s because my energy has been in my PwC life and giving that all that I have. I also said no to something a couple of years ago I’d have been adding pressure to myself to do. I spent a lot of Saturday doing some self-care. I sat in the garden and let my life pause for a little bit. No pressure. No overthinking. Just being. Yesterday I finally dealt with all those notifications and responded to people. I felt a bit more in control. I could breathe again.
I guess what I’m trying to say as I look back at my life on this day over the years is that there have been so many similar emotions. Fear. Hope. Happiness. I know that I felt all of these at CharlieFest in 2024, as I watched my daughter sing with my late husband. It was quite the moment for everyone in that room. I suspect there’ll never be a time when I’m not juggling all these emotions. Because despite all I’ve managed to achieve since I was that nervous 23-year-old in 2004, I’m still nervous. I don’t think people see it so much anymore, but I am. In a way I’m probably more fearful and scared now than I was either back then or in 2009 when I learnt I was going to be a mum. Because now a lot of what I’m doing and the decisions I’m making, I’m doing so by myself. The pressure to do the right thing and make the right decisions is magnified now. It still feels surreal despite being a widow for six years. I wonder if that will ever stop. I still wonder where we’d be had COVID-19 not entered our lives. But more than where we’d be, I wonder who I would be. That’s probably a question for another day in all honesty.
I don’t know whether today will bring anything that I’ll look back on in years to come as being of note and to add to my memorable Star Wars Day anniversaries. But I’m incredibly grateful for all this day has given me. The anniversaries I am able to celebrate. The friends I have. The person I’ve become over the years. And who knows. Maybe one day I’ll even watch A New Hope to commemorate this date. By all accounts it’s a bit of a classic.
Life is a rollercoaster 