I started this blog 4 long, long years ago on my 44th birthday. My idea at the time was to track 44 days of happiness. Life was pretty sad for me then and had been for quite a while. I was in a marriage that was filled with fear and pain, and I couldn’t see a way out of it that also looked after my kids. I was 2000 miles from home in a different country. I was sad, I was lonely, and I was unhappy.

So for 44 days I looked for things to make me happy. Some days it was the smallest of things – like seeing my heron on my morning walk. But I did notice at the end of the 44 days I felt better, more positive, happier.

So I kept it up. I blogged every day for over three years. Through the kids and I moving home, through dad dying, me getting divorced, the boy getting very sick, me breaking my shoulder, mom dying, and the girl also being very ill.

I blogged and felt better and even through all the change and pain felt like tracking my gratitude was making a difference.

When the girl got sick it just about knocked the bottom out of my world. And at the same time I realized that someone was reading my blog who had less than loving intentions towards me and my kids. So I stopped blogging as frequently, closed that person (and the rest of the world) from that part of our lives, and got through.

But you know, maybe I should have just kept blogging. This is my life, our lives, and what happens is real. It helps me process it to share it, it helps me find happiness to remember to find moments of joy in the day.

So today, on my 48th birthday I’ll commit to 48 days of happiness and go from there.

This year, my intention for my life is to seek peace. However that looks for me, whatever changes that entails, I need to look at things in a way that leads me to peace. This means the most important thing in my world needs to be strengthening my relationship with the Divine.

Today the kids took me to Banff. The car said 14c on the way there and it was a ridiculously nice afternoon in the mountains. The greatest gift I can receive is quality time with my loved ones- and that’s exactly what I got today

there was a snow carving festival going on. What they created was amazing

Today has been a weird day for memories. There are good ones, like remembering 19 years ago today when my cousin had her son (and he’s such an awesome human)

There are freedom memories, like the fact that 3 years ago today I filed for divorce and opened the possibility up for an entirely different kind of life.

There are sad memories like the fact that a year ago today was mom’s funeral. This one is intermixed with bittersweet happiness as I recall family and friends coming together and celebrating probably the bravest woman I ever knew.

And then there are memories of love like the one that popped up on my Facebook from 7 years ago that said this:

Mom, I probably should hold your hand more. I realize that the little girl hand I have been so used to holding will one day grow up to be a big girl hand and will probably not want to hold my hand as much, and there’s nothing like that feeling. *Long distance hand hold *

My baby was 7 then and I promise you that at 14 now the hand holding is few and far between. But there’s still a lot of love.

This is my last day of being 47. Today marks the last of the firsts without mom. But it also marks the first of a whole new future ahead of us.

Love is all there is.

The boy wore his jersey all day and after lots of yelling and stress eating he happy danced around the kitchen when they won their game and made it to the super bowl.

He’s been a Pats fan since we moved to Rhode Island and it brings him so much joy to watch them play.

I rode a different horse in my lesson today. This one was very similar in height to Drishti and apparently it brought out all the fears I had stuffed down inside.

When I got on I commented to my instructor that I was feeling a little nervous, but we kept going and I was fine. After about 15 minutes we stopped so she could explain something to me and I burst into tears. Not just a couple but a whole river leaked out.

And she said that makes perfect sense, you’ve experienced trauma. And I thought haha you have no idea

So finished crying and then kept riding. And I felt so much better.

Earlier today I was reading about grief and how you have to cry all the tears you need to before you can be done. If you have 24 tears to cry, then crying 17 isn’t enough

I have tears left to cry. So much changed so quickly. Dad died, I got divorced, the boy got sick, I fell off my horse and broke my shoulder, mom died, the girl got sick, I sold my horse. And in all that we were still processing the trauma from Mr. X.

Ignoring the feelings isn’t the solution. Feeling the feelings and allowing them to move through and release – that’s the solution.

How you do one thing is how you do everything. Horses have always been my spiritual healer.

I took the kids to see Aquaman tonight – it was a… yummy…. movie to say the least.

Our holiday time is coming to an end. We put Christmas away, and the kids are getting ready to go back to school. There are so many mixed feelings. This time last year we took mom to the hospital for the last time. As we enter next couple of weeks, there will be lots of memories, tears, laughs, and mourning. It all combines together.

But there sure are a lot of gifts she left us. The boy has been talking so much lately of how much of her time she gave him. The gift of time is precious. She always let him know he was important to her, and he holds that memory now as he moves forward in life.