Life is giving me constant reminders to stay in the moment and be present. I know this stuff, of course, but occasionally drift off into expectations of how I want something to be or how I think it should go.

Yesterday I did a market stall, selling my perfectly imperfect upcycled products. It was only the second time I’ve taken a stall to sell my products so I’m a very long way from being an expert at this type of thing.

A busy and slightly disorganised week caused me to forget to go to the bank and get a float of money. A very-late-in-the-day practice session on the card-machine resulted in some “Paypal says no” messages (other providers are available) and no option for customers to pay by card. And a random power-down by my phone overnight left me waking up feeling slightly more refreshed than I should have done, realising that my alarm hadn’t gone off and I had 15 mins to load my car and leave the house in order to get to the market in time to unload my car and move it off site.

I felt like I’d literally re-created a Hugh Grant, Four Weddings and a Funeral fuckety-fuck moment!

And the adversity didn’t end there…

Despite having a pretty good idea of where I was heading, I decided to trust my SatNav when it took me through lots of country lanes and scenic routes, only to arrive at my so-called destination which was very clearly NOT my destination.

Reinstating my faith in my own ability to navigate myself to where I needed to be, with a few more fuckety-fucks, this time directed towards my SatNav, I successfully found my destination and lovely Adrian who reassured me I wasn’t late and directed me to my market stall.

A quick phone call to my best friend, who was coming to help me out on the stall, revealed that her SatNav was also be a fuck-wit and she was running late and in possession of the table cloths to cover the tables before I could display my products.

Unloading my car anyway, so I could remove it from the site by the designated time, I managed to drop my recently recycled, re-loved cupboard, chipping various corners and scuffing the paint. Lovely Adrian reassured me it now had a shabby-chic look to it that people liked…I wasn’t convinced.

Locating my friend with an “I’m coming to find you” approach rather than relying on SatNav was the start of events starting to change.

With table cloths in situ and products displayed, the lovely lady on the stall next door offered to take card payments for me, should they be required. My friend went to as many coffee shops and retail establishments as she could to buy breakfast provisions and gather as much change as she could, in order for us to have a float of money.

And the sun came out. OK, so we were on the shady side of the street (in many ways ) but the sun was definitely out.

And as my friend and I chatted and laughed and lots of lovely people came to chat – even with the occasional purchase involved – I realised that this was what it was actually about.

And I realised this was yet another opportunity for me to let go of expectations; to let go of the mental-constructs of how I thought I wanted this event to go so that I could relax and lean in to the present moment and enjoy it for what it actually was.

Connection.

Connection with my beautiful friend. Connection with the lovely lady on the stall next to me who took my card payments (all 2 of them)! Connection with the kind and reassuring Adrian. Connection with the lovely lady who bought one of my decopauged vases and then texted me a photo of it in her beautiful room at home. And connection with the all the other people who stopped to chat about my upcycled products and how they represent living our lives in full colour, expressing our whole selves and being the perfectly imperfect human beings that we are.

With love Sarah xx