Be happy with who you are

 

The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are.

Goldie Hawn

My whole life, I have depended on my situation in life to determine whether I was happy or not.

Now I am happy with myself, despite my situation.  For the first time in my life, the important thing is to love myself and make myself happy by just doing nothing in particular.  I'm free with no obligation to anyone except myself. 

I've had a lot of time to contemplate who I am, what I want, etc. etc. etc.  The conclusion I came to is to just be happy and content no matter what . . . be content with what I have been blessed with and be grateful to God for all he has blessed me with.  He knows what I need.

What I need is important . . . not what I want.

I have all that I need and I'm happy.

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I Often Wonder

 

In my life, my purpose has changed numerous times.  What I have identified with has progressed from one thing to another.  What has been important has also changed.

So here I am, at a crossroads in my life, wondering what my purpose is.  When The Captain passed away, I immediately went from being part of a married couple to being a single woman.  When Kiki passed away, I was no longer a dog mom.  Both gave me love and varying purpose.

My only definite purpose in life has been to be happy and content.  I don't remember having a time that I could honestly say I achieved that happiness and contentment.  As a child, I developed my illogical fear of so many things.  Fear was the major emotion I learned from my adopted father who hated me for reasons I don't want to get into and still don't understand.  My godfather, who was a very sarcastic man, nicknamed me "Smiley" because I never smiled.

And so the unhappiness developed and never really went away.  No matter what life phase I was going through, those emotions were hiding underneath the surface of my being.   It continued through recent times, mostly with grief that started as a young adult and never went away, along with unhappiness.  Ultimately depression.  Yes, I have been to a therapist.

Back to the crossroads of my life, I do know what I want more than anything is to be happy, joyous and content.  As a retired person who worked so hard all my life, maybe my purpose should be to relax, love myself and just be the person I want to be and do what I want to do when I want to do it.  Make myself happy.  

As my recent grief for my little family, The Captain and Kiki, goes through the various phases, I have finally reached acceptance.  I could not be anything else but the person trying to figure out how to live my life without them in it.  As I reached that acceptance phase, I have wondered about the rest of my life and what would make me happy.  

The answer is happiness and contentment . . . peace, love and happiness.  Actually, it is what my blog started out as, an exploration of those three words with their differing meanings and finding that place in my life that is filled with peace, love and happiness all at one time.  The grief surrounding the death of my first husband intensified my unhappiness and depression which led me to writing about my emotions and those three little words.  Then I went from hope of happiness with The Captain to intense grief . . . again.

Little by little, I am realizing my freedom to be who I want to be and that thought has made me happy.  I have not worried about the many physical problems with my house and concentrated on getting through the grief.  The concentration slowly progressed to searching for true joy.  And I have been finding it just being myself, happy with myself without the hate and guilt that consumed me.  I directed it toward myself and I am so happy to know that phase of my life is over.

I have nothing to be guilty about, no reason to hate myself, no reason to not be happy.  The self-hate I felt derived from my father's hate for me and I FINALLY realize it was not my fault.  It was simply emotional abuse from a very sick man.

All of the negativity in my life is in the past.  I have put it all in an imaginary box and placed on a shelf that I can't reach and never want to.  

Peace and happiness is creeping in and that is making me content.  For the first time in my life, I know what my purpose is.

If you are having similar emotions you are holding inside, write about it, blog about it personally or publicly.  The result is a slow purging of why.  You have to understand yourself before you can heal.

My belief is everything in life happens for a reason.  I had to go through all that to get to where I am today and I hope I can help others.

I am grateful for God's love, guidance and direction.

 

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A Love Letter to Valentine's Day

 

Photo source:  Better Homes and Gardens

Although both my sweeties have passed away, Valentine's Day still means romantic love to me and I will always have my memories of the time we shared.  

The Captain was my Valentine's Day present.  We met online and communicated long distance for quite a while before meeting.  Although we were together for a relatively short time, I have a lifetime of memories with him. 

JR was my Christmas present (we met on Christmas night) and we married six months later and remained married many years until he passed away.

I feel so blessed to have had two wonderful husbands in my life and I still love them so much and always will.  

I also have sweet memories of my childhood Valentine's Day when all the kids brought a valentine for everyone.  They were so cute like the following graphic.

Times were much simpler then and it doesn't even resemble today's world and it makes me so sad.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

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Too Much Freedom

 

That is me, off in lala land, still thinking about chocolate and became obsessed with the news coverage for the missing lady.  

This is the "too much freedom" of retired life and not really having anything to do that has to be done now.  You can also call it procrastination.  In Italian, we say "domani" . . . I'm not sure about the spelling, but it translates to "tomorrow."  My mom and I have a running joke about the domani mentality.

The grief waves have also been hitting me, giving me the feeling of anything and everything can wait until domani.  I don't care.  It is a blessing that I am retired!

I'm thinking of a new blog about animals, dogs in particular with an emphasis on pet grief since I miss my Kiki so much.  The feeling that I have to be careful when I walk because she is right there by my feet every step of the way.  After 15 years of having to watch my steps is a habit that is a blessing and a curse.

Anyway, I drown my sorrows in internet articles about this and that, getting lost there.  The result is a flood of new blog posts.  It is truly my therapy about stuff that interests me that I hope will take over my attention.  It is not all miserable, trust me.  It is just a real depiction of life after so much loss since I never got over the loss of my first husband over 20 years ago, getting married again and then he passes away, then my sweet little dog who helped me through the first year after The Captain passed away, got sick and I had to put her to sleep.  

Oh yeah, and Hurricane Irma put a tree on my house that has made half of my house still messed up.  I try to find humor in every situation and have faith and trust in God that he will get me through it.  

I'm not looking for sympathy.  This blog is great therapy to let out how I am feeling and hopefully helping someone else going through the same thing.  No matter who you are, you will experience grief and it will come back like waves in the ocean, coming and going in its own time.  The depiction of real life is what is important.  We need to accept it to get through it.  

I hope my life experiences help you get through a struggle.  It helps to know you are not alone. 

Bless you all!

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Thankful For My Struggle

 

I am thankful for my struggle because without it, I wouldn’t have stumbled upon my strength.

Alex Elle

As I have done research for my food blog, sweet treats have consumed my thoughts.  I wrote about it for my home page and it made me realize something positive that came out of feeling negative.

My struggle has been the promise I made to myself to go sugar free after receiving really bad reports on my blood tests.  It really scared me after my follow up meeting with my doctor a few months ago.  One of the things I did immediately was to work on getting rid of my Pepsi addiction.  I accomplished that and have stuck to it a few months or so.  The elimination of sweet treats that I love was part it too.  I have been so proud of myself.

Well, with sweet treats that have consumed my thoughts I broke down and bought donuts yesterday.  Since then I have beat myself up and started getting thoughts of being a failure.

Somewhere between cheating on my quest and now, I have realized that I actually conquered the struggle.  It took me stumbling through the struggle that I have realized my strength.  And I feel like I go back to positive thoughts of progress instead of failure.

And I am grateful for the struggle!

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The Scent of a Memory

This post was originally written in 2008

The sense of smell can be extraordinarily evocative, bringing back pictures as sharp as photographs of scenes that had left the conscious mind. 

 Thalassa Cruso, To Everything There is a Season, 1973 

Many of my fondest memories are wrapped around a scent . . . yours probably do too whether you realize it or not.  JR, my first husband, was a carpenter, primarily a wood worker . . . as unusual as this is going to sound, the smell of wood was his scent. 

For the longest time after he died, I would smell his clothes that still held the lingering scent of freshly cut wood.  As the scent faded away, it sadly reminded me that "my present time" had turned into "my past" and memories that I would cherish forever. 

The scent of baking bread reminds me of my fondest childhood memories spending time with my Nana in the kitchen, wanting her to teach me everything about cooking. Every Thursday and Sunday, the whole family would get together for our traditional meal of spaghetti and meat balls and italian sausage.  She made the most awesome homemade garlic bread and pizza that she called "scachata." 

Although I don't live in a cold climate, JR and I used to love to sit outside and burn a fire in our outdoor fireplace. We loved going camping on our monthly mini-vacations which always included having a fire going as long as we were at the campsite. The scent of burning wood in our outdoor fireplace would take us back . . . I love to burn a fire in my outdoor fireplace.  Even though I'm alone, it is so cool to sit outside in the dark by the fireplace . . . and I also love it when my neighbors light their outdoor fireplaces.  The scent takes me back to so many places and brings back so many different memories. 

Diamond Lil has worn the same perfume for as long as I can remember . . . her house even smelled like it. When she would bring me anything from her house, my house momentarily took on the scent. My van smelled like her for days after we went off for a day of shopping since I usually drive. 

Like mother like daughter . . . I have worn the same perfume for as long as I can remember too.  The perfume scent also brings back all kinds of memories of past years. 

The smell of cotton candy takes me back to my teenage years when I'd take my little brother to the fair.  They are awesome memories of the special relationship we had as kids.  All from the scent of cotton candy.

My sweet furbaby Kiki would get so excited when my ordered fried chicken was delivered.  She knew she would get some.  Her excitement was so cute and touched my heart.  When I now smell fried chicken, the memory of her excitement touches my heart since she has been gone.  I didn't realize at the time how special her excitement was to me.

Memories can manifest themselves in many ways with all of our senses when you think about it . . . a song can take me back to a certain place and time.  I won't get started on that one or I will never stop writing.  I wrote a blog post today that mentioned memories from an old song that reminded me of The Captain.

Then I remembered this old blog post and I had to bring it back.  The scent of a memory is very special when the person is gone, but the scent remains.

 

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The anger of grief is gone

 

May you embrace this day, not just as any old day, but as this day. Your day. Held in trust by you, in a singular place, called now.

Carrie Newcomer

I'm grateful for today.

My day.

A day to be happy I'm alive.

Grateful for the joy.

Yesterday I saw a graphic in my phone that said, "I'm happy that God had blessed us with another Tuesday."  It was the message I sent to my mother to say good morning.

Later when we spoke, we both complained about our aches and pains, the arthritis, the pain that afflicts us both.  As I was winding down, I repeated the good morning message.  Even though I have this pain, I'm happy that God has blessed us with another Tuesday.  And we laughed and discussed how lucky we are to still be able to use our legs and walk . . . even with the pain. 

The anger of grief is gone and I can feel joy again.

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The bridge that carried me over

"Praise the bridge that carried you over."

George Colman the Younger
English dramatist

Every day is getting better for me emotionally.

It is a natural progression.

And for that I am grateful.

I am finally at peace and feel free

and praising the bridge that carried me over.

The graphic and the quote is how I am feeling today.  Since the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve, it feels like I have crossed that bridge in the quote.

It is a mindset of a new beginning.

Perhaps enough time has passed and my grief stage has remained in that new phase I have discussed.  It is about time!

From prior experience, I know I will still have my sad moments when that wave I talk about hits me, but soon I am back to normal.  

Grief never goes away, but neither does the love we experienced.

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Just Another Chapter

 

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.

Tom Stoppard

We exited 2025 and entered 2026.

Just another chapter in life as we move through the chapters, some good, some bad, some happy, some sad.

As a society, most of us eat black eyed peas or grapes or a number of what I call superstitions that are just that.

Every year I faithfully ate my grapes and black eyed peas, hoping that the year would be better than the last. One year was worse than the other whether I ate the grapes or not.  With the decade or so that I have had, this year I decided to forget the grapes and black eyed peas.

It is just another chapter in my life.  All I can do is pray for a better year and have faith that it will be.  

I'll have faith in God instead of grapes or black eyed peas.

Happy New Year!

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One day at a time

 

“The best thing about the future

is that it comes one day at a time.”

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

16th U.S. President

I've learned the concept of one moment at a time and sometimes it is one second at a time.

Life has a way of testing us by throwing unexpected situations at us, often leaving us broken and lost.

My choice was to have faith that God would see me through it and guide me as I worked through it all.  I was led to take life one day at a time.  When I had scary moments of feeling lost, I would take one moment or seconds at a time.

Now that I have gone through the grief phases and have reached one that allows me to have peace and joy again.  There are times when I think I am back in the beginning phases, but I can quickly get through it.

I'm so grateful I took the one day at a time approach.  When I would think beyond the day, that is when overwhelm and feelings of doom set in.

With God by my side, I can say "this too shall pass" and it always does.

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Coming out of a fog

 

It’s not life’s job to make me happy. It’s my job to find the joy in life by observing and appreciating the small wonders and everyday miracles that are all around me, everywhere, every minute of my life.

Paul Cotter

Beautiful words to live by.

The thought that it is my job to find joy in life was not realized until I started living the Simple Abundant life.  That book opened a whole new world for me.  I've written about it many times.

After The Captain and Kiki passed away, it is as if the world around me didn't exist anymore.  Although I still lived my life with gratitude, it did not bring me joy.

The new grief phase made me realize that it was the world that I knew and lived everyday was gone and I knew I would have to create a new life for myself.

Joy would mean something different.  Everything in my life is somewhat different, but I have finally realized this is my new normal and new joys in life would be experienced if only I would open my eyes to see them.

Now I appreciate the little things again like hearing the neighborhood roosters crow or hearing the sweet voices of the cardinals wondering if God brings them to me to experience joy again in my life.  They have been here all this time.

Today was a sad day for some reason . . . they just hit me like a ton of bricks.  It could be the holidays happening without them.  Of course that is going to make me sad because I miss them terribly.  But having gone through another day that slaps me in the face, I realize the miracle of having found joy again in little things in life that happen every day.  And that brought me joy to know I have entered the grief phase of acceptance even though the sadness remains.  Awesome memories keep them alive.

I have survived the awful grief phases . . . and that has become my everyday miracle.

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Agree to love

 

"To love, my brothers and sisters, does not mean we have to agree. But maybe agreeing to love is the greatest agreement. And the only one that ultimately matters, because it makes a future possible."

Bishop Michael B. Curry These words are so true. Disagreements have affected relationships in my life.  What happened to the days when we disagreed and did not talk about it.  Just drop it.  You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe. It used to be - don't talk about religion or politics. Everyone is all of a sudden so sensitive. What has happened to our society?

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Positive anything and everything

 

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

Elbert Hubbard

The world around you looks so much better when you think positively.  Recently my life changed drastically because of the way I have changed my way of thinking.The saying "don't worry about what you can't change" describes another change I've made in my thinking.  Of course that is within reason.  There are reasonable things we will always worry about.There have been times in my life when I was thinking that everything was negative which led to a great deal of unhappiness.  In general, my negativity changed nothing and I could have thought positively and experience happiness.  It is all a mindset. We may not be able to control outcomes, but we can somewhat control how we feel.My grief has entered a new phase.  Good and happy memories are what I think about and it brings on smiles instead of tears.Negativity causes pain and I choose not to go there.

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Live For The Moment

 

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life. Omar Khayyam The Captain lived for the moment and lived it to the fullest.  I can say with confidence he had no regrets.  He did what he wanted to do, what made him happy. It allowed him to live a very happy life, finding humor in just about everything and always tried to make everyone around him laugh. You would never know that he also lived with PTSD from his military life that brought him nightmares that never left him.  He saw lots of death around him yet he survived and it could be why he chose to live for the moment. Living for the moment is not how I lived my life before I met him.  His attitude was that God was leading his way, so he should not worry about anything.  I worried about everything even though I have strong faith in God.  But I worry anyway, although not as much and I am getting so much better as time goes on, getting stronger by the day. For that, I am so grateful he was a part of my life for the time he was with me.  He taught me many lessons.  Grief hit me hard and I didn't realize a lot of things until recently. When you think about it, the moment is all we have since the future is not promised.  So you must live it with gusto and be grateful for the moments you experience. That quote really made me think and I will continue to ponder the concept of living for the moment in honor of The Captain.  May he rest in peace.

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Blessed beyond the chaos

 

“Every day, I try to remember all the ways I am blessed, beyond the chaos and bad things that happen. I take inventory and remember the wonderful people who love me.”
 

Ariana Madix

It amazed me when I came across the quote because it is the mindset I have had lately.  I have practiced the Simple Abundance lifestyle of gratitude for a long time, but my current emphasis has been on all the wonderful people who have touched my life and how their presence in my life have blessed me in different ways.  The love is what makes grief so horrible for me when they are gone, but the memories touch me deeply.  And I am so very grateful for those awesome memories.

Not everyone is meant to be in our life forever.  Sometimes God's plan for their presence in our lives is for a specific lesson and time.  I'm strongly realizing everything that has happened to me is a lesson.  The good and the bad.  

We choose to not like what has happened at the time, but there is always something there to learn when we seriously think about it.  In time I am almost always grateful for the lesson.

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Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart

 

It seems like yesterday that I watched the ball come down in Times Square.  Time has flown by as I prayed it would to better days that weren't so emotionally painful.  I can now feel joy in simple things again, a smile appears on my face for some of those simple things and it occurs to me I've reached the place in time I had asked God to stay close to me and surround me with his angels as I get there.  Another dreaded holiday has crept up on me and I'm fine.  The trigger days aren't as painful as they once were.  Thank God, I'm so grateful.

While I have no desire to put up a tree or decorate for Christmas since JR passed away over two decades ago, I don't hate the festivities anymore.  I can feel the joy of Christmas again and that makes me happy.

Today I'm realizing the beautiful world I remember is still here, it is within me even though the real world seems to be falling apart.  The strength within me will continue to take me to those better days I have prayed would come.

Proverbs 3:5-6:  

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

 and do not lean on your own understanding.

  In all your ways acknowledge him,

 and he will make straight your paths."

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Find the reason

 

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”

Maya Angelou

One of the things I try to do is find a reason why a particular thing happened.  After living a happy and fortunate life for 23 years with JR, my first husband, it seems like after he passed away everything has gone wrong up to this day.

As I was contemplating life this Thanksgiving day and being grateful for everything, even the sad things that have happened I made a realization that I have thought of often.  In my life, like everyone else, I've experienced good and bad phases.  I've learned lessons through all of them.

Some people stay in a bad situation, meaning "bad" emotional state having gone through an unfortunate time.  It is my hope that I can be an example of someone who has gone through one bad thing after another for several decades and can work my way out of a bad emotional state.  There is another side to most bad situations.  You just have to find it and realize it.  For me, my faith in God gets me through even the bad days lately.

I'm always trying to find my way out of that cloud and I hope my life experiences can help you too.  

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We all have choices

 

“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. 

Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
 

WAYNE DYER

American author and motivational speaker

As I approach another Thanksgiving holiday alone without my little family, The Captain and Miss Kiki, the challenge has been to be happy with my awesome memories.  I miss them like crazy, but I can't bring them back, so I have chosen to go on with my life and not be so miserable.

When I think of all the people who were close to me in my lifetime that are now gone, it is sad to acknowledge they are gone, never to return, and I have made it through without them . . . every one of them, one by one.

That is life.  The fact that I grieve so hard for those who have left my life means that I seriously loved and cherished them.   It makes me so grateful to realize I have had so much love in my life that many don't experience.

The thought of no one having to die in this world sounds ideal, but in the scope of the existence of everyone ever in the whole world, doesn't it seem a little strange?

It is with extreme gratefulness that I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

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