Ordinary Growth

How do we measure life that keeps changing shape?

Ordinary Growth

I found an old receipt for a barely used rice cooker, crumpled at the bottom of my old coat pocket that barely fits anymore and has more holes than the memory of where I had put that rice cooker “for safekeeping”, it felt like proof of every wrong thing and empty promise I have ever bought into.

But life is more like the Coop noticeboard, old flyers, overlapping business cards, phone numbers half torn, and events nobody attended. Every week someone, full of hope, pins up something new. The layers build. The corners curl. The board tells its own story. Dave the carpenter and Elizabeth the window cleaner wait for their phones to call.

Yes, I find comfort in that. That we are not the version of ourselves who forgot, who fumbled, who said the wrong thing on a Tuesday in 2025. We are the shopkeeper turning our sign to open, again and again. The passer by pinning up our hopes and dreams for all to see. Every new morning giving us another chance to recognise ourselves.

I realise its just growth. Ordinary growth.

Not fireworks. Not grand speeches. Just choosing a new route home from the shops and finding the streets still lead somewhere beautiful. I need my windows cleaned, and I did say I was going to get round to fixing that fence. I just found a 1kg bag of rice, bought in 2025, I remember, because I said the wrong thing.