#PlantHoe🌱

a jedi does not cling to the past. and obi-wan kenobi knows, too, that to have lived his life without being master to anakin skywalker would have left him a different man. a lesser man. [2]

Merlin bounced the lamb lightly in his lap, smiling as it planted both of its front legs on his chest and dug its hind hooves into his thighs. “It’s not his fault he’s scampish,” he said, bopping it on the nose. “Have a heart, Will. His mum didn’t want him.”

Will gave the lamb an unsympathetic look. “You and me both, lad,” he said to it. “That’s no call for being an absolute pest.”

summary: It’s the last year in Ealdor for both of them, though they don’t know it yet.  

Merlin and his peasant prince, as the wheel turns.  In eight parts.

a/n: You know how I kept saying that the reason I postponed finishing S5 was because I was working on a fic and I was worried that knowing how the show ended would make me want to quit writing and never look back?  And so I delayed watching the end of the show for an entire year, because that’s how long it took me to finish this thing?  

Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.

(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)

I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.

It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice - they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”