Happy 250th birthday, America.

I woke up this morning with mixed emotions, and for a split second I caught myself thinking that maybe I shouldn't. Maybe today was supposed to be simple. Hang out the flag. Eat too much potato salad. Watch the fireworks. Celebrate.

Except here in Colorado, there won't be any fireworks.

Not because we forgot what day it is, but because the wildfire danger is simply too high. Instead of looking forward to fireworks lighting up the night sky, we're watching fire maps and hoping the brave firefighters battling these massive fires get a little help from Mother Nature. Last night, the smoke hanging over Colorado turned the moon into the most incredible shade of deep red. It was absolutely beautiful... and completely heartbreaking at the same time.

As I sat there with my coffee this morning, staring out into the haze, I realized something.

This is perspective.

Not the smoke.

Not the holiday.

The fact that two completely different emotions were sitting at my table, sharing the same cup of coffee.

I was born in Germany, but in October of 2007, I became an American citizen. I still remember standing there, raising my right hand and taking the oath. I remember the excitement, the gratitude, and the overwhelming sense that I had chosen this country to become my home.

That feeling was real.

It still is.

So are the mixed emotions I have today.

For some reason, we've convinced ourselves that both things can't exist together. Somewhere along the way, we started believing that if you love your country, you have to pretend everything is wonderful. Or if you're disappointed by something you see, then somehow you've forfeited the right to celebrate any of the good.

Who came up with that nonsense?

Life has never been that black and white.

Neither are people.

Neither are relationships.

The longer I do this work, the more convinced I become that one of the greatest traps we fall into is believing there are only two choices. Right or wrong. Good or bad. Success or failure. With us or against us.

Perspective whispers something entirely different.

What if both things are true?

What if I can be deeply grateful to live in this country and still wish we treated one another with more kindness?

What if I can celebrate 250 years of extraordinary achievements while acknowledging we've also stumbled, sometimes spectacularly?

What if I can look at a smoky Colorado sky and feel sad about the fires, while at the very same time feeling incredibly grateful for the firefighters putting themselves in harm's way to protect complete strangers?

None of those thoughts cancel each other out.

They complete the picture.

I've noticed something over the years. Most of us don't actually struggle because life is complicated. We struggle because we keep trying to simplify it into two neat little boxes. We want everything to fit into "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong," "us" or "them."

Life just smiles and says, "Cute idea."

Then it hands us a reality where joy and grief sit on the same park bench.

Where hope and uncertainty share the same zip code.

Where gratitude and concern ride home together.

Maybe that's why I love perspective so much.

It doesn't ask me to pick a side.

It simply asks me to see a little more.

Today, I don't have to ignore the things that concern me in order to celebrate becoming an American citizen nearly nineteen years ago. I don't have to pretend everything is perfect to feel grateful for the opportunities this country has given me. And I certainly don't have to choose between celebrating America's birthday and praying for rain over Colorado.

I can do both.

Maybe growing up isn't about becoming more certain.

Maybe it's about becoming more spacious.

Making room for more truth.

Making room for more compassion.

Making room for the possibility that someone else's perspective might contain a piece of the picture I haven't seen yet.

If there's one thing America has taught me over the past nineteen years, it's that we're still becoming.

After 250 years, we're still learning.

Still growing.

Still arguing.

Still dreaming.

Still trying.

And honestly...

So am I.

Maybe that's why this country feels like home.

Not because it's perfect.

Because it's a work in progress.

Then again, aren't we all?

So today, I'm raising my Happiness Matters mug to a country that is still writing its story, to the people who keep showing up even when they disagree, and to the quiet hope that tomorrow we'll all see just a little more of the picture than we did yesterday.

Because if perspective has taught me anything, it's this:

You can love something...

...and still want it to do better.

I think that's one of the healthiest kinds of love there is.

One More Reason I'm Celebrating Today...

For years, one little word has followed me around like a persistent mosquito.

Trust.

Actually, that is not entirely fair to mosquitoes. At least they eventually go away.

Trust did not.

It kept showing up everywhere I turned. During my own QHHT sessions. Through those quiet little intuitive nudges that somehow always seemed to know more than I did. Just last month, during a QHHT session with a friend, Archangel Michael apparently decided it was time to bring it up yet again.

Trust.

Now, if you have been reading my Messy Middle adventures for a while, you already know this is not the first time we have had this conversation. In fact, I wrote an entire post about trying to figure out what on earth “just trust” was even supposed to mean.

Because, quite honestly, I did not get it.

When you have spent part of your life learning that trust is not always safe, people telling you to “just trust” feels a bit like handing someone a violin and saying, “Just play Beethoven.”

Wonderful idea.

Tiny problem.

I have absolutely no idea how.

So every time that word came up, I found myself asking the same question.

What does trust actually look like?

Not philosophically.

Not spiritually.

In real life.

What does it actually look like when the dishes are in the sink, the website needs updating, the coffee is getting cold, and your brain has opened twelve tabs without permission?

Apparently, the Universe heard my question and decided to answer it in the most Sabine way imaginable.

It started because I could not remember the name of an organization.

I know... I was hoping for something a little more dramatic too.

Back in 2023, during my own little breast cancer adventure, I received one of those information packets they hand you before you leave. Buried somewhere inside was a flyer about an organization that offered free energy healing sessions to people going through cancer treatment. I remember thinking it was a beautiful idea, tucked the flyer away, and moved on with life.

Until lunch the other day.

The organization came up in conversation, and as we talked about how it worked, my brain wandered off into familiar territory. Not because I thought their model needed changing. Quite the opposite. I loved what they were doing.

My brain simply did what it always seems to do.

It asked another question...

What would a win-win look like?

Now, experience has taught me that I should probably pay attention when one of those questions shows up.

Not because I know where it is going.

Because I never do.

That question tugged at me long after the conversation was over. I started thinking about the Happiness Matters Foundation and what it might look like to offer something similar, but in a way where the person receiving support was honored and the practitioner offering support was honored too. The details are not the point of this story, which is a miracle all by itself because my brain loves details the way cats love knocking things off counters. The point is that one question opened a door.

Then another door opened.

Then another.

Before I knew it, the idea of the Hope Collective began taking shape. The phrase Hope in Motion, which had been floating around in my heart for quite some time, suddenly found a real home. The Foundation became clearer. The website no longer quite fit. My sixtieth birthday fundraiser shifted into something more meaningful. Everything seemed to connect to the next thing, and instead of trying to force it, explain it, or pin it down like a butterfly under glass, I simply followed.

That is the part that surprised me.

I simply followed.

One breadcrumb led to another, and for once, I was not demanding the entire loaf of bread before agreeing to take the next step. I was not trying to see the whole map. I was not waiting until every possible question had been answered and every possible outcome had been guaranteed. I was just moving with what made sense in front of me.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I pushed my chair back, stared at the screen, and laughed.

Not because anything was funny.

Because something felt familiar.

The process.

The unfolding.

The strange way one tiny question had turned into clarity I did not even know I was looking for.

And then it hit me.

This was not new.

This was the pattern.

The first time I consciously remember following one of those breadcrumbs was in April 2018, when I felt this strong, ridiculous, unmistakable nudge to write a book. I had never written a book before. I did not have a publishing plan. I did not know what I was doing. I just knew I was supposed to write it.

So I did.

Three and a half months later, I held my first published book in my hands and launched it on my birthday.

At the time, I did not call that trust.

I just called it writing a book.

Looking back now, I think that book gave me something much bigger than becoming an author. It gave me my first piece of evidence. It showed me that when I followed a nudge all the way through, something real could come from it. Not perfect. Not polished. Not guaranteed. Real.

That matters.

Especially when you are someone who was not handed trust as a birthright. When trust has been fractured, you do not always rebuild it by deciding to believe harder. Sometimes you rebuild it by collecting evidence. One small lived experience at a time.

That first book was evidence.

Then, this year, something shifted again. Matters of Perspective finally found its voice. Not because I sat down and forced it into a perfect business box, but because I kept following what felt true. One page led to another. One phrase revealed the next. Wayfinding became clearer. QAR7IS found its language. The work I had been doing for years finally started introducing itself properly, which was very considerate of it because honestly, I was getting tired of trying to explain it at parties.

The same thing happened with Home of Misfits. It did not feel like I invented it from scratch. It felt like I finally made space for something that had been waiting for me to recognize it. And now HMF was doing the same thing. Not becoming something different, exactly, but becoming more itself.

That is when the trust piece finally started making sense.

I had spent years thinking trust was something I needed to feel before I moved.

Maybe I had it backwards.

Maybe, for me, trust was never going to arrive first with a permission slip and a marching band. Maybe trust was built after I moved, after I followed the breadcrumb, after I watched one nudge turn into something real, then another, then another.

Maybe trust was not the starting point.

Maybe trust was the evidence I collected along the way.

That thought stopped me.

Because for years I kept asking how to trust, as if trust were some mysterious spiritual achievement I had not unlocked yet. I expected it to feel peaceful. I expected certainty. I expected calm confidence and maybe a little gentle background music.

Instead, trust kept showing up dressed as curiosity.

It looked like asking one more question.

It looked like writing one more page.

It looked like following one more idea that refused to leave me alone.

It looked like changing the website because the old words no longer fit.

It looked like letting Hope in Motion finally become more than a phrase.

It looked like turning sixty and deciding that meaning mattered more than stuff.

It looked like taking the next step even when my nervous system had not received the full itinerary.

Hot damn.

No wonder I did not recognize it.

I thought trust would feel like certainty.

For me, it felt like following through.

That may be the real shift.

The first conscious breadcrumb in 2018 was not just the beginning of my life as an author. It was the beginning of learning that I could follow something without fully understanding where it would lead. Every breadcrumb since then has added another piece of evidence. Not evidence that everything will always be easy or that every idea will work perfectly, because please, let’s not get carried away. This is still Earth, and humans are still involved.

But evidence that the nudge is worth listening to.

Evidence that clarity often comes after movement.

Evidence that maybe I have been trusting all along, just not in the way I thought trust was supposed to look.

That is the part that makes me laugh.

I kept saying I did not know how to trust.

Meanwhile, trust had been quietly walking beside me, handing me one breadcrumb at a time, probably rolling its eyes lovingly while I asked for another sign.

Apparently, trust has sass.

Respect.

So maybe the question is not always, “Do I trust?”

Maybe the better question is, “Where have I already followed through?”

Where have I listened to the quiet nudge? Where have I taken the next step without knowing the whole path? Where have I allowed something to unfold instead of forcing it into a shape it was never meant to hold?

Because sometimes we do not recognize trust while we are living it.

Sometimes we only see it when we turn around and notice the trail.

One breadcrumb.

Then another.

Then another.

Until one day we realize we were not lost.

We were being led.

So now I have a question for you.

What question has been quietly tapping you on the shoulder?

The one you keep dismissing because it seems too small, too random, too inconvenient, or too likely to make a mess of your carefully arranged plans?

What if it is not random at all?

What if it is the first breadcrumb?

That is exactly how this next chapter of the HappinessMatters Foundation began. If you are curious where those breadcrumbs eventually led, I would love for you to wander over to the HappinessMatters Foundation. You will meet the Hope Collective, discover why Hope in Motion has become the heartbeat of the Foundation, and see the next chapter that is beginning to unfold.

Maybe you will simply explore.

Maybe you will find a spark of hope.

Maybe you will discover a way to become part of the story.

Whatever brings you there, I hope you leave believing something that took me years to recognize.

Sometimes the biggest changes do not begin with a master plan.

They begin with one honest question... and the courage to follow where it leads.

If this story made you smile, pause, laugh, cry a little, or simply reminded you that you're not the only wonderfully imperfect human trying to make sense of this crazy thing called life... don't let the spark stop here.

The Happiness Matters Foundation exists to create opportunities where hope grows into action, possibilities expand, and people discover they don't have to navigate life's messy middle alone.

Every story shared, every perspective shifted, every act of kindness, and every person who chooses to care helps keep that spark alive for someone else.

Stories change people.
People change communities.
Communities change the world.
One perspective shift at a time.

If you'd like to help keep that spark alive for the next person who needs it, we'd be honored to have you beside us.

✨ Become a Spark

Or, if today's story simply gave you something worth thinking about, sharing it with someone who might need it today is another beautiful way to keep hope in motion.

Some mornings you wake up with a plan. Other mornings, you ask ChatGPT a simple question about a book and accidentally rebrand your life's work before your second cup of coffee.

Guess which kind of morning this was.

It started innocently enough. I had heard of The Celestine Prophecy years ago but had never read it. For whatever reason, it popped into my mind, so I asked what it was about. We chatted about the nine insights, consciousness, intuition, meaningful encounters, and all the things that tend to make my little neurospicy brain light up like a Christmas tree.

Then something unexpected happened.

Somewhere in the conversation, the words Perspective Educator appeared.

I stopped.

Not because it was a clever title. Because it felt like someone had finally handed me a puzzle piece I'd been searching for without realizing it.

For years, I've wrestled with labels. Counselor never quite fit. Coach didn't feel right either. Those words describe professions, but they never captured what I've actually spent my life doing.

Perspective Educator.

There it was.

One tiny shift in language, and suddenly decades of work made sense.

Naturally, one little realization couldn't possibly stay contained. If you've ever reorganized one drawer only to find yourself repainting the entire room by dinner, you'll understand exactly what happened next.

"If that's who I am," I thought, "then my LinkedIn headline needs updating."

Which, of course, meant my About section suddenly felt outdated.

Then my LinkedIn banner looked wrong.

Then the company page needed rewriting.

Then Facebook started giving me side-eye.

By this point, I was deep into what can only be described as an accidental identity renovation.

Somewhere between rewriting my bio and arguing with Facebook over the order of credentials, another sentence slipped out of my mouth.

"I essentially help people remember."

Again, I stopped.

Not because I had never said those words before. I have. Many times. But for the first time, I really heard them.

I don't spend my days fixing people.

I don't hand out answers.

I don't tell people what they should believe.

I help people remember.

Remember their wisdom.

Remember their resilience.

Remember they have choices.

Remember who they were before fear, expectations, limiting beliefs, or life itself convinced them they had become someone else.

And then another realization quietly tapped me on the shoulder.

Remembering changes perspective.

Perspective changes lives.

I actually laughed out loud.

Here I was, asking about a book whose central message is that meaningful insights often arrive exactly when we're ready for them. Whether you call that synchronicity, divine timing, subconscious processing, curiosity, or simply paying attention doesn't really matter to me. What mattered was that one innocent question had quietly led me to the words I'd been searching for my entire career.

The funny thing is, I thought I was looking for information.

Instead, I discovered I'd been carrying a question I didn't even know I needed to ask.

By the time I looked at the clock, it wasn't even ten in the morning. My second cup of coffee was almost gone, my LinkedIn profile had been rewritten, Matters of Perspective® had a clearer identity than ever before, and I suddenly understood my own work in a way I never had.

Now that my second cup is empty, it's time to update my website so it reflects the new-ish branding too.

Funny where curiosity can lead.

Keep the Spark in Motion

For most of my life, I thought hoarding was something other people did. You know, the people everyone shakes their heads at. The people whose houses become cautionary tales. The ones whose garages haven't seen an actual vehicle since the late nineties because every available square inch has been claimed by things they might need someday.

I never considered that I might have something in common with them.

Not once.

Now before anybody starts imagining towers of newspapers, forty-seven cats, and a narrow trail leading through my living room like some sort of archaeological expedition, let's calm down. My version was much tidier than that. My version fit neatly into closets, drawers, cabinets, and shelves.

Lots and lots of shelves.

Looking back, I can see exactly how it happened. It wasn't a conscious decision. I never woke up one morning and thought, "You know what would really improve my life? Keeping random things for decades." It happened slowly, one item at a time. Craft supplies. Office supplies. Books. Cables and cords whose original purpose had long since disappeared into the mists of time. Trinkets, gadgets, and perfectly good things that might come in handy one day. Things that had once served a purpose and no longer did but somehow continued earning their place in my home.

The funny thing was that every single item came with a perfectly reasonable explanation.

I might need it.

It could be useful.

What if I can't replace it?

What if?

At the time, those thoughts felt practical. Responsible, even. I wasn't hoarding. I was preparing. I was being resourceful. I was thinking ahead. Look at me being a capable adult and planning for the future.

Meanwhile, my closets were quietly preparing for the apocalypse.

Not the exciting kind with zombies and dramatic movie soundtracks. The organized kind. The kind where I could confidently survive because I apparently owned enough office supplies to supply a small company, enough craft supplies to open a hobby store, and enough mystery cables to reconnect technology from three different decades.

The longer I sit with this now, the more I realize the stuff was never really the point.

The feeling was.

Because every object represented something bigger than itself. It represented security. It represented preparedness. It represented the comforting illusion that if something went wrong tomorrow, I would somehow be okay because I had saved the thing.

What thing?

Didn't matter.

The thing.

That realization hit me harder than I expected.

One day I found myself looking at something I hadn't touched in years. I don't even remember what it was now, which is probably part of the lesson. I just remember standing there asking myself a question I had somehow avoided for decades.

Why am I keeping this?

The answer wasn't because it was useful.

The answer wasn't because it was valuable.

The answer wasn't even because I particularly liked it.

The answer was because it made me feel safer.

And suddenly this wasn't a conversation about clutter anymore.

It was a conversation about scarcity.

Growing up, scarcity wasn't an occasional visitor. It wasn't a passing thought that showed up every now and then. It was more like an unwanted roommate that never left. It colored how I viewed money, opportunities, possessions, and sometimes even life itself. There was always this underlying sense that there might not be enough. Not enough resources. Not enough security. Not enough certainty. Not enough guarantees.

When you spend enough years living with that belief, you start preparing for shortages that may never come.

You start collecting safety.

Once I saw that pattern in myself, I started noticing it everywhere. Suddenly the idea of hoarding became much bigger than overflowing closets and storage units. Some people collect possessions. Some people collect money. Some people collect accomplishments, titles, influence, status, followers, or power. The pile changes, but the promise underneath often sounds remarkably familiar.

"If I get enough of this, I'll finally feel safe."

That's where things started getting uncomfortable.

Because society has a fascinating habit of judging some forms of hoarding while celebrating others. Fill your house with newspapers and people become concerned. Fill your bank account with billions and people become impressed. One gets labeled a problem. The other gets labeled success. Yet underneath both can be driven by the exact same question.

What if there isn't enough?

Now before anyone sharpens their pitchfork and starts drafting an angry email, I'm not saying money is bad. Success isn't bad. Influence isn't bad. Ambition isn't bad. Not even a little. Money is a tool. Power is a tool. Influence is a tool.

The real question is why we're collecting.

Are we building something meaningful?

Or are we trying to soothe a fear that can never be satisfied?

Because fear is greedy. It never reaches a point where it says, "Perfect. We have enough now." Fear always wants one more. One more dollar. One more achievement. One more backup plan. One more reason to believe everything will be okay.

Just one more.

The biggest surprise wasn't how much lighter my house became when I finally started letting things go. The biggest surprise was how much lighter I became. Every item that left seemed to take a little bit of fear with it. Every shelf I cleared created room somewhere inside me too. It wasn't really about decluttering. It was about dismantling a belief system I had been carrying around for years.

Turns out, I wasn't hoarding stuff.

I was hoarding security.

And the irony is that the security I was looking for was never sitting in those closets in the first place. It wasn't hiding in a drawer. It wasn't tucked away on a shelf. It wasn't waiting inside a storage container to rescue me from some future disaster.

It was hiding in trust.

Trust that I could handle whatever came next.

Trust that there would be enough.

Trust that I would figure it out.

Trust that I was already far more capable than fear wanted me to believe.

That lesson didn't arrive overnight, and if I'm being honest, it's probably still teaching itself to me in small ways. Every now and then I still find something I'm reluctant to release. Every now and then that old voice still whispers, "What if you need it someday?"

These days, I simply smile and ask a different question.

What if I don't?

Funny enough, that question has created far more freedom than all the shelves ever did.

Turns out freedom wasn't waiting on the other side of more.

It was waiting on the other side of enough.

The sneaky little bastard.

What About You?

As I dug into my own relationship with scarcity, I discovered that the things we hold onto aren't always sitting on shelves or tucked away in closets. Sometimes they're old beliefs. Old fears. Old stories we've carried for so long that we mistake them for truth.

What are you holding onto?

What belief, fear, expectation, or "just in case" story might be taking up space in your life?

You don't have to figure it out alone.

Next month I'll turn sixty.

Now before some of you start getting all emotional about that number, don't worry. I'm still mentally somewhere between twelve and forty-two, depending on the day, the amount of coffee involved, and whether Jeff has suggested a trip to Costco.

Yesterday caught me completely off guard.

Nothing bad happened. Nobody upset me. No catastrophic email landed in my inbox. No government agency sent me on a three-hour scavenger hunt through seventeen dropdown menus and a forgotten password from 1998. It was a perfectly ordinary day. Yet somewhere in the middle of that ordinary day, a wave of sadness rolled in and made itself comfortable.

Rude.

Years ago, I probably would have tried to distract myself. Stay busy. Clean something. Organize a drawer. Reorganize the same drawer because apparently the first organization wasn't emotionally effective. These days, I've learned that emotions usually know something before I do. So instead of arguing with the feeling, I got curious.

As I sat with it, I realized I was thinking about Mo.

My buddy.

My shadow.

My faithful sidekick.

It's been over a year since he left this physical world, and most days I'm genuinely okay. I smile when I think about him. I tell stories about him. Sometimes I still talk to him. If that sounds strange to you, you probably haven't met me. Or owned a dog. Or both.

The interesting thing is that I don't spend much time wondering where he is. As a coach and QHHT® practitioner, I've spent years exploring healing, consciousness, purpose, and the bigger questions surrounding this human experience. Through my own journey and the journeys of the people I've been privileged to work with, I've come to believe that our story doesn't end when our body does.

I know Mo is okay.

I know he's around.

I know love doesn't disappear.

What surprised me yesterday was realizing that I wasn't missing his spirit.

I was missing his nose.

His paws.

His fur.

The way he would quietly lean against me as if his full-time job description was "Professional Support System."

I missed the warmth of him stretched out beside me. I missed reaching down and finding him there. I missed all the little physical moments that seemed so ordinary while they were happening and somehow became priceless the moment they weren't.

As I sat there thinking about him, Gandalf wandered through the room looking mildly offended by something only he could see. A few minutes later, Zafira launched herself off a piece of furniture with the confidence of someone who has never once considered gravity a legitimate concern.

I laughed.

I adore those two little weirdos.

They've brought joy, laughter, companionship, and occasional property damage back into our lives. Their purrs, cuddles, and midnight zoomies have filled spaces that felt painfully empty after Mo passed.

Yet even while watching them, I realized something.

Love doesn't replace love.

It doesn't work that way.

Nobody replaces anybody.

The heart simply gets bigger.

It somehow finds room for the ones who are here, the ones who have left, the ones we miss, and the ones who arrive later carrying their own unique kind of magic.

Somewhere between missing Mo and watching feline nonsense unfold in my office, my thoughts took a turn I never saw coming.

I found myself thinking about my childhood.

Now that was unexpected.

I wasn't doing shadow work.

I wasn't digging through old memories.

I wasn't sitting there trying to solve my childhood before dinner.

I was missing my dog.

Yet somehow my mind wandered into territory it hadn't visited in quite this way before.

For the first time in my life, I found myself looking at my childhood through the lens of grief.

That realization stopped me cold.

I've spent years looking at my upbringing through the lens of healing, resilience, forgiveness, growth, perspective, and responsibility. I've made peace with so much of it. I've done the work. I've learned the lessons. I've found meaning in places I never expected.

Yet somehow it never occurred to me that there might be grief there too.

Because how do you grieve something you never had?

I never had the loving mother and father I longed for.

I never had parents I could run to when life hurt.

I never had the experience of feeling emotionally safe, protected, understood, and cherished in the way every child deserves.

I never had a sibling beside me sharing the journey.

For decades I've thought about those realities in terms of what they taught me and how they shaped me. Yesterday was the first time I simply felt sad for what could have been.

Not angry.

Not resentful.

Not bitter.

Just sad.

Sad for the little girl who kept hoping.

Sad for the little girl who believed that maybe next time would be different.

Sad for the version of life she imagined but never got to experience.

And perhaps what surprised me most was how peaceful that sadness felt. There was no fight attached to it. No blame. No need to make anyone wrong. Just an acknowledgment that something important had been missing.

As I sat with that realization, other forms of grief began quietly stepping forward as if they had been standing in line waiting their turn.

I found myself thinking about friendships.

Not the dramatic endings.

Not the train wrecks.

Not the relationships that crashed and burned while taking out half the neighborhood on the way down.

The quieter ones.

The people who once occupied a significant place in my life. People I laughed with until my stomach hurt. People I cried with. People I celebrated with. People who knew versions of me that no longer exist.

At one point I couldn't imagine my life without them in it.

Then life did what life does.

People changed.

I changed.

Paths diverged.

The calls became less frequent. The messages became occasional. One day turned into one month. One month turned into one year. 

Before either of us fully realized it, the chapter had ended.

The interesting thing is that I genuinely wish every one of those people well.

I hope they're happy.

I hope they're thriving.

I hope life has been kind to them.

We're all walking our own path. Sometimes people travel beside us for decades. Sometimes they only share a few miles of the journey. Neither is wrong. Looking back, I wouldn't erase any of those chapters. Well... maybe a paragraph or two. But not the whole chapter.

Understanding that doesn't remove the sadness, though.

It simply changes the shape of it.

Apparently gratitude and grief are perfectly capable of sharing the same chair.

Then, because grief apparently decided to hold a full staff meeting yesterday, my body wanted a turn too.

That realization may have surprised me most of all.

When I was younger, grief belonged to funerals. Nobody explained that one day grief might show up when your body could no longer do things it once did without a second thought.

Back then, if I wanted to do something, I simply did it.

Now there is a planning committee involved.

The committee includes knees, ankles, energy levels, pain levels, accessibility concerns, and occasionally a cat sitting on me who has voted against all movement.

There are places I'd love to explore. Adventures I'd happily sign up for. Experiences I would embrace tomorrow if my body agreed with the plan.

Sometimes it does.

Sometimes it files a formal complaint.

Most days I focus on gratitude because there is so much to be grateful for. This body has carried me through nearly sixty years of lessons, adventures, surgeries, diagnoses, miracles, mistakes, wisdom, and second chances.

We've been through a lot together.

But every now and then I remember what it felt like to simply decide to do something and then go do it.

No calculations.

No negotiations.

No energy audits.

No consultations with the Board of Directors currently occupying my joints.

Just go.

There is grief in recognizing that some of those days are gone.

Not because life is over.

Not because joy is gone.

Not because possibility has disappeared.

Simply because some things have changed.

And change, even when we accept it, can still be sad.

By the end of the day, the heaviness had softened. Not because I found answers. Not because I solved anything. It softened because I listened.

What started as missing my dog somehow became a conversation about grief in all its unexpected forms.

The dog who isn't beside us anymore.

The parents we never had.

The friendships that belonged to another chapter.

The body that no longer does what it once did.

The dreams that never arrived.

The possibilities that never unfolded.

Maybe grief isn't simply about losing what was.

Maybe sometimes it's about making peace with what never was.

I don't have a profound conclusion.

No five-step formula.

No inspirational quote floating across a sunset.

I just found it interesting.

Yesterday started because I missed my dog.

It ended with me realizing I was grieving things I never even knew I was grieving.

And for someone who spends her life helping people shift perspective, that feels like a perspective worth paying attention to.

If you've been carrying a grief that doesn't fit neatly into a box, maybe this is your reminder that it still counts. Maybe it's okay to acknowledge it, sit with it, and give it a little space to breathe. And if this reflection helped you feel a little less alone in your own messy middle, I'd love for you to subscribe, share it with someone who might need it, or explore some of the other stories here.

Sometimes the greatest shifts begin with realizing we're not the only ones asking the question.

Shift happens...