My husband and I have recently settled into a new home — a place that feels like the culmination of many quiet hopes and long-held dreams. It’s more space than we’re used to, with a generous garden where our children now play freely, their laughter echoing through the trees. We’ve traded the rhythm of city life — the grey air and hurried expressions — for the stillness of a rural village, where neighbours greet each other by name, front doors remain unlocked, and bicycles rest unchained.
We count ourselves deeply fortunate to have been able to make this move.
Now, as summer unfolds, we find ourselves in Bulgaria, visiting my family. We’re staying in a modest apartment — four of us tucked into two bedrooms — and it has stirred something in me. A reflection on wealth. Not the kind measured in square footage or passport stamps, though those things hold their own kind of privilege. But the quieter, deeper kind.
In recent weeks, I’ve come to see that true wealth is far more intimate. It’s having both of my parents alive and well, doting on their grandchildren. It’s being in a marriage rooted in love, admiration, and mutual respect. It’s the stillness of an afternoon with a book in hand while the children nap, their faces sun-kissed from a joyful morning by the sea.
It’s going to the gym with my sister, sharing laughter and a commitment to caring for our bodies. It’s gathering for birthdays and Christenings, surrounded by family, every seat filled. It’s the sweetness of seasonal fruit, grown just down the road, and meals prepared with love and familiarity.
This — these fleeting, grounded moments — is what I now understand as true abundance. And I am deeply, quietly grateful.
