In pursuit of the blissful life.

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My marriage has fallen apart.All of a sudden I’m alone and I there are moments where I can’t remember who I am.

I went from being alone. To falling in love. To falling pregnant. To getting married. To being together. To having Bo. One became two, became three. And now? Shattered. Now I stand here as I did before all of this as one person, completely changed.

I have been known to take the path less traveled, to pursue that which is not the norm, to live out of the box. I always try to make conscious choices about my attitude, choices about the way I see the world, choices about my priorities and the things that are important to me – so that I can design the life I want to live instead of waste my days wishing things were different. It’s what lit the fire under my heels and packed my bag and made me disappear from this every-day-grind so many years ago. I was out in search of my life and every day I found it in a new place, in the eyes of new people in the smell of earth and the salt on my skin.I found bliss in so many moments in so many countries with so many people. Blissful moments. I never stopped searching. And now at the end of the day I am still looking. Even though my search has changed as I have changed (and what is life without change and growth?) the pursuit has always been of the blissful life. Not of money or things or houses or cars. But moments of bliss.

It’s hard to catch and hold on to. Bliss. It’s a fleeting moment. A moment of pure happiness. A moment of perfection, where everything fits and the world comes together and everything aligns. Bliss. There is bliss everywhere. Holding my almost one year old daughter to my chest. Feeding her, her soft breath on my skin, her fluttering eye lids, her cheeky smile when she catches me watching her. Bliss.

I’m slowly healing, though the wound of the betrayal is still weeping. I’m healing from the inside out. Infidelity in a marriage is a difficult betrayal to ever come back from. It’s something that strips us down to our most vulnerable, takes from us our most coveted and spits on our memories. It makes even the most blissful memories of our times together seem like lies. Every happy moment becomes fake and forced, every joyful photograph has a new sinister context. But we can come back from it. Individually. I can come back from it.

I’m learning again who I am. Who I am without him. Who I am now that the world has changed. It’s like I’ve been in the dark for these years and my eyes are just trying to adjust to the light. The little person standing beside me, her hand in mine, is showing me the way.

Six weeks ago my husband left. I told him to go. How can you stay with someone who has no respect for you? How can you stand by one who doesn’t stand by you? And so now I stand here alone, with my child. Strong and weak at the same time. Empowered and bewildered all at once. I stand here, baby on my hip and I face the world. From the ashes of a failed marriage, new trust will grow. Trust in myself. Trust in the universe. Trust in the magic that the world provides when you just take the time to listen. When you surrender yourself. When you learn to let go.

It’s easy to forget. It’s easy to keep the blinkers on and to get overcome by the to-do lists and the shopping lists and the events and the schedules and the daily grind… and forget what is really and truly important. It’s easy to get stuck in the sad or the mad or the bad. To get bogged down in the ugly and to get lost in the darkness that creeps up inside. It is easy to forget that magic is everywhere.

But it’s also really easy to remember it too. If you just stop. And breathe.

Just breathe.

And watch the people around you because magic lives in people. It lives in the people we love and it lives in the people we don’t even know yet.

It lives in you. It lives in me.

And I am going to find it. Every day.

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• Breaking the silence: Finding a way out of anger.
• Forgiveness.