Aligned & Awake: There Were Two Types of Potatoes and No Going Back
In a French living room on St. Patrick’s Day, I found myself returning to a feeling that has followed me since I was eleven
Aligned & Awake
My reflections on life through travel, human design, energy, astrology, and emotional clarity. Not as a guru. Just one person figuring it out in real time.
Tuesday night in France and I’m standing in a kitchen that smells like butter, laughter, and a suspicious amount of potatoes.
Three other women. Different passports. Different timelines. Same look in the eyes that says, “Ah, you’ve lived a bit.”
They let me have my Irish moment. No resistance. No questions. Just, “Right, what do we need?” Answer: spuds. Multiple forms. Non-negotiable.
We cooked like we were feeding a small village. There was something roasted, something mashed, something that started as a plan and ended as chaos. Standard. A Baileys appeared. Then another. At some point, I thought, “This is medicinal, right?” which felt like a lie I was willing to support.
Music on. Plates abandoned mid-conversation. The living room slowly forgetting it was ever meant for sitting. It turns, quietly at first, into a dance floor.
By midnight, we were deep in it. Not the dancing. The talking.
You know the kind.
Chairs pulled closer.
Voices softening.
Eyes locking in.
Four women. Time bending a little.
Stories start landing on the table between the wine glasses. Proudest moments. The climbs. The quiet wins no one claps for. The times we’ve walked into rooms feeling like impostors in a very convincing outfit.
I’m nodding along like, yes, same, always, who let me in here.
And then someone asks the question.
“What was your happiest moment?”
It arrives easily. Almost like it’s been waiting its turn.
I’m eleven.
A dress that is a size too big and probably itched.
A room full of people who believed in love.
My parents getting married.
There’s a whole story there. The kind with twists, timing, and a bit of fate doing its thing. The kind you’d pitch as a film and someone would say, “That didn’t actually happen,” and you’d say, “Oh it absolutely did.”
I was ten when I learned who my father was.
I was eleven when my parents found their way back to each other and got married.
I remember the music first. Then the feeling.
I danced all night. Proper dancing. The kind where your feet forget they’re attached to you. I stayed up late and no one sent me to bed, which felt like winning something important.
There was an excitement in me that had nowhere to go. It kept building, spilling over, lighting me up from the inside.
I got to watch two people choose each other.
I got to stand in the middle of that and feel it.
Safe.
Real.
Like I belonged in a way that settled right into my bones.
It stays with me, that feeling. It still does.
Back in the living room, someone tops up my glass like this is all perfectly normal behaviour for a Tuesday evening.
Next question.
“What is something you appreciate about each other and yourself?”
Straight for the heart.
I could talk all night about the women in that room. Honestly, I’d write sonnets. Ballads. A mildly aggressive thank-you note to the universe.
Myself takes a second longer.
“I’m staying open.”
That’s it. That’s the answer.
I’m moving through countries like a woman collecting moments instead of furniture. I’m trying on a new career like a coat that still has the tag on. Some days it fits beautifully. Some days, I laugh at how it sits on me and wear it anyway.
There’s a quiet energy running under everything. I’m in my own life and I can feel it.
I stay open to the places, the work, the people who walk in and sit down like they’ve always been there.
Especially the women.
You can feel it in rooms like this. Women building lives that belong to them. Lives they’ve chosen, shaped, and stepped into with their whole selves.
The music keeps going. Everyone moves in their own rhythm. Bodies finding their way through the song as they trust themselves again.
Two in the morning arrives and we let it stay.
I’m standing there, slightly tipsy, fully awake, looking around the room and thinking,
This is it.
The version that lives here.
A living room turned dance floor.
Women who see each other properly.
Stories that land and stay.
St. Patrick’s Day.
A man did his thing centuries ago and somehow we’re all still raising a glass to him, fair play.
For me, it lands here.
A marker.
A small flag in the ground.
This is where something opens.
Love in all its forms.
Laughter that catches you mid-sip.
Connection that settles in your heart.
A life being made in real time, slightly chaotic, occasionally banjaxed, and entirely mine.
And somewhere in it, I can feel her.
The eleven-year-old on the dance floor.
Up too late.
Lit up from the inside.
Certain she belongs here.
I stay with that feeling now.
I let it find me again, even on an ordinary Tuesday night.
I’m standing right in the middle of it, holding it like it matters.
Because it does.
Tell me…
What’s one moment in your life that still glows when you think about it?
Beautiful. I'd love to see a photo of that eleven year old! I bet she was so cute and full of moxie!