Late Saturday Night

Morning friend.

I’m writing this from a table inside the gym.

It’s quieter than usual now the kids are off school.

Sweat is still trying to force its way onto my brow even after a cold shower.

I’ve just finished my ritual fifteen minutes in the sauna.

I do that four or five times each week.

The sauna is one of the only places I can truly relax.

There is nothing to do in there other than stay in the heat while my body tells me to get out.

No phone.

No distractions.

Just heat and thought.

I’ve needed both this week.

For the last few weeks, I have been trying everything I could to secure what I believed was our dream home.

I couldn’t really afford it.

Not comfortably anyway.

But I had decided to go all in.

To put everything I had on the line and find a way to make it work.

It wasn’t just about buying another house.

It represented something much bigger.

A place that felt like home.

A loop I had written about closing in the letter I wrote to myself at fifty.

For a while, it looked possible.

Three people were bidding on the property and we were racing to agree a sale on our own home.

We received an offer.

It was too low, so I waited and tried to move the dial.

Then, first thing on Monday morning, the phone rang.

The house had gone.

A deal had been agreed with another buyer late on Saturday night.

Just like that, the future I had spent weeks imagining disappeared.

I felt completely deflated.

Not simply disappointed.

I felt as though I had let my family down.

I felt as though I had let my future self down too.

Then I had to put those feelings somewhere and walk onto the mats to teach a high-energy class.

There is nothing quite like trying to inspire a room full of people when you would rather lie face down alone underneath your own desk.

The rest of the day was difficult.

I kept replaying the phone call.

Reworking the numbers.

Wondering whether there was still something I could do.

That evening, after teaching the final classes, I walked home with my phone inside my bag.

The light was beginning to soften.

The streets were quiet.

And somewhere on that walk, I realised that I was living in a reality that no longer existed.

The world had moved on sometime late on Saturday night.

By Monday evening, I still had not moved with it.

Part of me was clinging to the idea that the deal might collapse.

That the phone might ring again.

That because I wanted it badly enough, and because I believed we deserved it, the outcome should somehow change.

But the house was gone.

Arguing with reality would not bring it back.

All it would do was stop me from seeing what was in front of me right now.

Late summer sunlight.

A community I had built, full of students I was proud of.

A home to walk back to.

A family waiting inside it.

I had become so focused on the home I wanted that, for a moment, I had stopped seeing the one I already had.

The disappointment has not disappeared.

I still hope reality might move again and somehow swing back in our favour.

But hope is different from pretending.

Hope looks forward.

Pretending keeps us trapped in the past.

This week brought movement in another part of my life too.

After four years of pressure, accusations I have always denied and a process I have mostly had to endure in silence, I was informed that a Tribunal hearing will take place this autumn.

I cannot tell you much more than that yet.

One day, I will.

Perhaps you will even read about it in a bestselling book.

I have already spent the imaginary royalties on an outdoor sauna, so let’s hope so.

The two moments reminded me of something important.

Some realities ask us to let go and move forward.

Others ask us to hold our ground until the truth finally has somewhere to be heard.

Wisdom is knowing which one you are standing in.

For now, I am here.

Sitting at a table in a quiet gym.

Sweating again.

Writing to you.

Living in the life that is actually happening.

I’m becoming increasingly convinced that this is where peace rests.

Not in the future we have imagined.

Not in the past we believe should have turned out differently.

Here, right now.

Let’s take a moment to debrief together:

Where are you still living inside a reality that has already moved on?

A relationship.

An opportunity.

A version of yourself.

A plan you were certain would work.

What might you see if you stopped arguing with what has happened and looked again at what is still here?

Your mission this week:

Take a walk this week without your phone.

Notice what is real.

Not what you hoped would happen.

Not what you fear might happen next.

What is here now.

Then decide whether this moment, or something you have been wrestling with, is asking you to let go or hold your ground.

That’s enough for now.

More next Sunday.

Mike

Hold the Line · Do the Hard Things