There are only a few hours left before I pack up my things, close the cabin door, and leave the Norwegian Highlands. I’ve been sitting with that feeling this morning, looking around at the little space that has been my world for the past week and taking in all the familiar details that have quietly become part of my days: the mountain views outside the windows, the changing skies, the cool Autumn air, cups of tea on the terrace, candles burning inside, long stretches of quiet and, occasionally, the sound of someone else eating every half an hour. It has been a very different week from the one I imagined when I arrived.
I came to Norway with a fairly simple intention. I wanted to find clarity and finish my book. That was it. I had a manuscript to work on, expert contributions to gather, and a week in the mountains where I thought I would spend most of my time writing. Instead, the book has taken a little pause while I wait for experts to come back to me, but the manuscript itself is ready. And the clarity? Well, that arrived in abundance. Arguably far more than I expected.
From “What Now?” to “Watch Me”: Midlife by Design, Not by Default
There comes a point in midlife where the old ways simply stop working, not always dramatically, not in a way that makes the outside world sit up and take notice. Sometimes it happens quietly, internally, right in the middle of ordinary days. You wake up one morning and realise you can no longer keep performing a life that no longer fits.
I didn’t realise how much noise I had been carrying until I was somewhere quiet enough for it to disappear. For a few days, I wasn’t primarily someone’s mother, sister or daughter. I wasn’t constantly responding to somebody else’s needs. I wasn’t rushing around Home, trying to keep everything moving. I was simply Kiran, sitting at a wooden table with my laptop, looking out at the mountains, drinking tea, and allowing my thoughts to wander wherever they wanted to go.
And those thoughts went everywhere.
I came here to write my book and ended up clarifying the next chapter of my entire life.
The 49-to-50 Project suddenly became much clearer. I could see what I want this year to be about, how I want to document it, and how I want to inhabit it rather than plan it. I realised that I am not designing the woman I will be at 50 in advance. I am meeting her as I go. That feels like a very different way of approaching this next year of my life.
The Cabin Diaries - Day 5: The Year I Meet Myself on the Way to 50 #Project49to50
There is something about sitting in a cabin in the Norwegian Highlands, with mountains outside the window and enough silence to hear yourself think, that makes certain ideas feel clearer. This morning, as I sat at the dining table with my laptop, I found myself thinking about the woman I will be when I turn 50. Not in the usual way, with a list of thing…
I also finally understood what my sabbatical means to me now. It isn’t an escape from life, as I might have needed it to be several years ago. It is quality solitude. Time where I don’t have to be anything to anyone. Time where I can hear myself think, notice what is emerging, and simply exist without constantly performing a role. Perhaps that is why one or two weeks in a cabin can be enough for me. I don’t need six months away from life. I need enough space to remember what mine actually feels like.
The Cabin Diaries - Day 1: My Sabbatical Has Changed
It is only 9.32 on Monday morning, and I already know what today’s Cabin Diaries needs to be about: Sabbatical.
Then there was the Meet-Cute Experiment.
A conversation with Kai Soremekun 🤸🏽♀️✊🏽 a few weeks ago had stayed with me, particularly her question: What are you going to do about it? I had naively said that I was hoping my person would simply show up one day. Sitting here in the mountains, I realised how ridiculous that sounds when I’ve spent so many years behind a screen and inside my Home. My person isn’t going to magically appear at my front door with flowers. If I want love, friendship, community, and new experiences, I have to become available to life.
Not by forcing myself to talk to strangers or turning every outing into a dating exercise. Simply by being there.
So I started imagining my Autumn differently. Walking along the embankment. Going to bookshops and cafés. Visiting flea markets. Going to the museum for the free Friday sketch sessions. Taking my watercolour painting with me. Sitting somewhere and simply being amongst people. Letting conversations happen naturally rather than trying to manufacture them.
The Cabin Diaries, Day 2: I’m Going Where Life Can Find Me
This morning, after a shower, a load of laundry, the dishwasher humming away in the background, breakfast, and a little photo shoot for today’s Cabin Diaries, I found myself thinking about my Meet-Cute Experiment. It feels rather fitting that this is what has come to mind on my second morning at the cabin, because yesterday was about turning inward and …
My job is to be available enough for reality to introduce me to him. And it isn’t only about him. That is becoming increasingly clear. I want friendships. I want a small, close circle of people to share life with. I want community. I want to help women in real rooms, not only through a screen. I want to meet people and discover more about myself through those interactions.
That became very real this week when the Central Library said yes to my Midlife & Menopause drop-in sessions. My first session is booked for 12 September. I have also started exploring another venue for a monthly meet-up. Something that has existed primarily online for years is beginning to move into physical spaces.
And that matters to me more than I can properly explain.
I’ve spent decades behind a screen. I’ve created, written, coached, interviewed, built businesses and connected with people from behind my desk. But I am beginning to realise that I don’t want the rest of my life to happen there.
I still love my Home. I am still an introvert. I still need solitude. Being out and about can overwhelm me, and I don’t suddenly want to become a woman who is constantly socialising. What I want is balance. I want to be able to go out into the world, meet people, experience things, and then come Home, light the candles, put my feet up, eat something delicious, and sink into my sofa.
Home can still be my sanctuary.
It just doesn’t have to be my whole world.
And then there was my business.
Yesterday I made the decision to move both my Substack publications to custom domains, creating one proper digital home for each of my two businesses instead of continuing to juggle four platforms. Today, The Sattva Collective is officially live on its new domain. I have also migrated around 400 posts from Midlife by Design into its Substack, with the larger migration still underway.
The Cabin Diaries - Day 6: Everything Under One Roof
There is a particular kind of clarity that seems to arrive when you have been away from your normal environment for long enough. Somewhere between the mountains, the quiet, the cups of tea on the terrace, and the complete absence of the usual demands of Home, I’ve started seeing my life and my work from a different distance. I came to the cabin intendin…
That wasn’t on my original cabin agenda. Neither was mapping out the rest of 2026, extending #85WeeksToFifty for a whole year, as originally intended, planning the remaining 52 interviews, thinking through the autumn content rhythm, or getting clear on what I actually want my businesses to feel like going forward.
But that is precisely what has fascinated me about this week. I haven’t been productive in the way I normally think about productivity. I’ve been clear.
There is a difference.
I haven’t been sitting here trying to squeeze every possible task out of every hour. I’ve painted. I’ve journalled. I’ve looked through old notebooks from 2018 and 2019. I’ve made blueberry compote. I’ve sat outside with tea and felt the warmth of the sun on my back. I’ve watched the rain come down. I’ve lit my Autumnal scented candle. I’ve tried watercolour painting for the first time properly. I’ve gone for walks and taken photographs. I’ve stared at the mountains.
I’ve also done laundry, dishes, cooking, and all the mundane things that make up being alive.
And somehow, from all of that space, things have started falling into place.
Of course, the week wasn’t entirely the peaceful solo retreat I had imagined. My brother decided to gate-crash my cabin stay and, rather impressively, extended his visit all the way until we check-out. So my planned week of complete solitude became a week with another human being in it, complete with food requests, noise, mess, and the occasional need to remind him that this is my break and I am not here to baby anyone.
It actually became another unexpected lesson in the week: boundaries.
For the first time, I firmly said that I was not going to automatically become responsible for someone else’s needs simply because they were in my space. I was happy to cook dinner, but breakfast, lunch, and snacks were not suddenly my job. I could love my brother and still say, Go and make yourself something to eat.
The Cabin Diaries - Day 4: This Is My Break From Being Needed
I woke up sometime around 4-4.30 this morning, although I wasn’t quite ready to get out of bed. The cabin was still and dark, but outside, the first light was beginning to creep across the Norwegian Highlands. I could see the gorgeous sunrise from my bed, the sky gradually changing as morning arrived, and for a little while I simply lay there taking it …
And then there was everything that happened with Dad at the beginning of the week, which brought the little Kiran very unexpectedly to the surface. I felt the old fear of disappointing him, the anxiety of being told off, the physical reaction that belonged to a much younger version of me. But something shifted through that experience too. I heard her. I understood her. And when Dad eventually apologised and told me not to worry about anything, to relax and enjoy the cabin, something in me softened.
The Little Kiran I Didn’t Know Was Still There
A few days ago, I was sitting at my aunt’s house looking through old photographs. There were photographs of me at different ages, in different stages of my life, surrounded by different people and living through different versions of myself. Normally, looking through old family albums would be nostalgic. I might laugh at my hair, remember where we were,…
By the time he became angry again about the overnight layover he had chosen by insisting on travelling that day, I found myself saying something I don’t think the younger Kiran could have said.
I did what I could do.
And I meant it.
There has been a lot of that this week. Old versions of me surfacing, being seen, and then being allowed to move on. Perhaps that is why the clarity has been so profound. I didn’t come here to reinvent myself; I came here and finally had enough space to notice who I already am.
The woman who loves her Home and solitude but wants to experience more of the world. The woman who wants love but doesn’t want to hunt for it. The woman who wants meaningful friendships but doesn’t need hundreds of people around her. The woman who wants to help other women in real rooms. The woman who wants a beautiful, well-designed life but doesn’t want to spend hours maintaining it. The woman who wants to be well-dressed and well-groomed without turning it into a chore. The woman who wants her business to be meaningful, make an impact, and successful without allowing it to consume her.
The woman who is nearly 50 and finally has enough space to ask herself:
What do I actually want now?
I can see the woman who realises that the things she has been working towards for years are finally in place.
And perhaps that is the most beautiful thing I am taking home from this cabin.
I didn’t come here to do more. I came here to make space. And in that space, I found clarity. I found ideas. I found boundaries. I found parts of myself I had forgotten were still there. I found a clearer vision for my work. I found a willingness to step outside my front door and participate in life again. I found the beginnings of a different relationship with my own time.
And I found something I didn’t know I was looking for: proof that when my life is aligned with my vision, I have an enormous amount of energy. Because I did all of this from a cabin in the Norwegian Highlands.
I painted. I journalled. I rested. I walked. I worked. I wrote. I planned. I clarified. I migrated a business publication to its new home. I mapped out the next year of my life. I started bringing my work into physical spaces. I thought about love, friendship, community, and the woman I am becoming.
The Cabin Diaries - Day 3: I Think I’ve Been Living This Life All Along
There is something about a rainy day in the Norwegian mountains that makes everything feel slower. This morning, the cabin was wrapped in grey, with heavy clouds sitting low over the landscape and the trees looking softened by the mist. The windows were closed against the chill, and I could feel that unmistakable bite of Autumn beginning to creep into t…
And I did it without making productivity the point, and that says everything. When I have space, I don’t become lazy, I become clear.
When I stop being needed by everyone else, I don’t stop functioning, I start hearing myself.
When I take productivity off the table, I don’t necessarily do less, I do the things that actually matter.
So, in a few hours, I’ll pack my bags. I’ll reset the cabin one final time, take one last look at the mountains, and stand outside for a while before I leave. I’ll probably have one last cup of tea, breathe in that crisp Norwegian air, and allow myself to feel grateful for this strange, beautiful, unexpected week.
Tonight I’ll return to my brother’s apartment, and eventually back Home.
But I’m not returning as exactly the same woman who arrived. I’m returning with a much clearer understanding of what I want the next year to feel like.
And perhaps that was the real purpose of this cabin stay all along: I came to finish a book, I left with a clearer life.
Goodbye, cabin.
For now ❤️
Kiran x
Kiransinghuk.com | The Sattva Collective
