Have you noticed...?

Do you notice something different about me in these pictures...?

Don't look too close.. it's either obvious or it's not. I was going through pictures from my recent DisneyWorld trip (don't worry, I'll get started on the race reports after this!) and I realized something was different, but couldn't figure it out and kept looking. Many pictures in, it dawned on me.

My smile is back full force.

This big push forward is in thanks of all the great people I got to take pictures with last week. And I'm glad. I lost this smile right before 2014 started, maybe even back at the beginning of 2013; I lost function in my leg (and it has just been getting worse), I lost my brother, I lost my job of 8 years, I bounced around houses until I ended up back at my parents' house, and I had some friends walk out of my upside down world because they didn't like it and/or my healing process.

I fully admit it's been a long process and I have had more downs than ups... at my first appointment with my therapist, she took a deep breath after I told her why I was there, and told me all the hits I had been taking was basically like enduring a trauma over and over with no time to heal. And just when I thought there was nothing else, I took another one. But a few months ago, I had a turning point. That sixteen year old kid I was came out and smacked me for undoing all the work she did in making me a positive person, in choosing to have a good day, in thinking everything was going to be okay. It's still a process; the brain is a negative machine and you have to retrain it otherwise. Every time I get negative, I stop and take a moment to see all the good. It gets easier each day; I have to redirect those thoughts less and less.

I have been making those leaps that I have been working so hard on, that I have been consciously moving towards. And this is huge.

A long time ago, someone told me that my smile lights up every bit of me and almost gives me a halo. I never entirely understood that, but I have always been proud of that... despite everything I have gone through in my life, that smile remained. I guess everything dims when hit enough times. And now I understand. In these pictures from DisneyWorld, I am practically glowing.

And everything is going to be okay. ;)