Happiness is ______ {Week Thirty-Six} #happinessis

Home » #happinessis » Happiness is ______ {Week Thirty-Six} The 9/11 Edition #happinessis

2013 is going to be a fantastic year – a year where we collectively focus on the happy and the joy in our lives. What makes you happy? What is it that you do that you can’t get enough of? What makes your soul shine, your eyes beam, and your insides sparkle?

Happiness is so very many things for me, and on Wednesdays I plan on sharing the answer to that. Every week, here, on Twitter, on Instagram and Facebook. You can follow along by using the hashtag #happinessis on Twitter and Instagram.

This week’s a tough one. When I started Happiness is thirty-six weeks ago, I had no idea that one of the Wednesdays would be 9/11.

flag half mast — Captured this on a walk today. This took my breath away.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve vacillated between sharing this post as normally scheduled today, or pushing it off a day to Thursday, just for this week. I even went to bed last night without finishing this, let alone posting it, because I had already decided to push it to Thursday.

But then I started seeing all the updates and images from social media, with the words “Never forget.” I even reread all the posts I’ve written here countless times about 9/11, too. But it was the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, and the post I wrote about it, that ultimately helped me decide to go ahead and post about “happiness” today.

What better way to remember their sacrifices and lives than to honor their memory cherishing our freedoms and liberties, celebrating that we still have life, love, and that the sun still rises and sets, and the moon still waxes and wanes?

I won’t ever forget 9/11, but I won’t let the terrorists win and destroy our spirit, either.

Today, as I do everyday (and showcase on Wednesdays every week), I will continue being grateful for my loved ones, even if I do hold them a little closer today in remembrance, while secretly stifling back tears of that God-awful day twelve years ago.

This week, I rode bikes with my kids almost every day.

bike riding fool We went walking, went to the park. I even went for a couple runs (the weather’s starting to get cooler! Yes!) We played outside when it wasn’t raining and the rain clouds looked like this: