You count the days as they barely move.

Whoa. Last time I paid this thing a visit, I was only 27.

27 was probably the most difficult year of my life, if not the worst. But all the struggling I did made it the most important year, too. I think I learned more, grew more, and changed more while I was 27 than I did collectively over all the years prior.

27 brought out the worst in me, brought me down to my basest level. I finally saw the girl I really was...and I didn't like her. I didn't hate her, either; I felt sorry for her. She was a victim, someone who let all the pain and ugliness around her ruin all that was good within her. She was pathetic.

But I'm a year older now, and thanks to the many ways I was blessed when I needed it most, I'm not that girl anymore. I've never been stronger or more self-assured. I now know that no matter what happens to me, I can and will survive.

That girl is still in here. Sometimes I catch glimpses of her under the surface. And honestly? I'm kind of glad. It feels good to know that I'm not her anymore because I choose not to be.

Mother's Day.

It IS a happy Mother's Day for me. In a few hours, my own mother will be home, and we will have steak and salad for dinner and I'll give her a pedicure while she watches whatever she wants on her new cable TV. I am lucky - to have a mother, to have a mother who loves me, to have a mother who loves me close enough by that I can show her my appreciation with more than just a card or a call.

But not everyone will have a happy Mother's Day, and the lack of sensitivity to this frustrates me.

Valentine's Day gets all the attention. Renamed "Singles Awareness Day," billions of lonely people get to bitch about V-Day and draw faint vapours of guilt from happy couples around them.

What about today? What about the unspoken millions who never knew their mothers, or whose mothers were, for any number of reasons, undeserving of honour and celebration? Or the women who have yet to become mothers, despite an intense longing to do so? Or the women whose children were conceived but never born, putting them in a limbo state between motherhood and not?

As a tragic overthinker, I can find happiness and heartbreak in every situation.

I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty. I, myself, am choosing to focus on the celebration of today, and not on the lingering shadows in my heart. But, as we lift the mothers of the world up to God in prayer today, let us also ask for peace and comfort to touch the hearts of those who can't fully celebrate today.

Alchemy, sorcery, and everyday magic.

Okay, so I can't quite turn lead into gold, control the weather, or transform into an animal. But then, I never tried to do any of those things.

I can, however, extract joy from darkness, spread sunshine on the dullest day, and find contentment in the simplest pleasures.

I can hear the wind sing of my loveliness. I can look at a coin and see a rose. I can find God in the strangest places.

I can't see the future, but I'm learning to stop looking. No good will ever come from wasting today worrying about a tomorrow that's 48 hours from being yesterday.

I can spend each moment at work on my heart, so that when I arrive at my unforseen destination, I will be ready for it.

And I can thank God that my destiny isn't limited to the scope of my finite mind.

"We all falter...but it doesn't matter."

You expect your parents to be mighty and infallible. They've been entrusted with all that you are and ever will be, and you NEED them not to fail.

But they fail anyhow, because they're only human. Inevitably, they do. Even the best parents with the best intentions, at one time or another, will err in their judgement and you will be wounded as a result. They'll be too harsh, or too lenient. Smothering, or inattentive. Too trusting, or too suspiscious. Whatever the circumstances, there comes a time in every child's life when they suffer because their parents made a wrong decision.

As a daughter, it was so hard to bear scars that could have been prevented had my mother only done something differently. It was a grudge I carried for years. I thought that the hardest part of growing up was forgiving your parents for all the ways they failed you.

No. The hardest part comes much later, when you have children of your own, and despite your best efforts, you fail them. The hardest part is forgiving yourself.

“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise” - Alden Nowlan

"No reason is needed for loving."

This is the best Valentine's Day I've ever had. Because I finally understand love. I finally get it.

First, I had to grasp the unconditional love of the Maker. I had to see how much He loves me.

And in doing that, I learned to truly love myself.

It was that leap that enabled me to see the Soul of the World. And it is beautiful. Because it is love.

Life is a beautiful puzzle. We're all just pieces. Puzzle pieces don't choose their place; they are destined for it.

The people in my life, the ones who love me and who are loved by me, are a part of my own puzzle, and as a result, are a part of the puzzle of every person beloved of me, even those they have never and will never know.

Isn't that beautiful?

I am in love today. In love with myself, in love with the Lord, in love with the puzzle of life.

Love is beautiful. Even the love that hurts. The opportunity and capability to feel someone's pain to the point that it becomes my own is a blessing.

I feel like I'm in Jedi training. I'm learning to love without possession. In AA, they tell us that the only way to keep something is to give it away. In the same way, sometimes the only way to love someone is to let them go. Not necessarily to remove them from your life or yourself from theirs, but to accept that they will never be yours.

My greatest love will always be mine. Always, and never. Learning to accept the balance of those has enabled me to love him, myself, and God more than I ever thought possible. Our great romance was a fleeting moment, a moment that will always be ours and ours alone, a moment that left an indelible mark upon us both. Accepting that moment for what it is has brought me joy beyond measure. We will always be a part of one another, so long as I hold my heart high and love him unselfishly, the way I am meant to.

No evil can come from love. Heartbreak is not the result of love, it's the result of selfishness. Love unselfishly, but love carefully.

"Above all else, safeguard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23

“If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.” - Lewis Carroll

I believe in miracles.

But I didn't understand them.

I thought that miracles were all beauty and joy, sweetness and light.

Silly girl.

Life tested me recently. Tested US. And we failed. We KNEW the right thing to do, but we hadn't the strength to do it.

God had to intervene. He had to do the right thing for us. And we have to suffer because of it. We must suffer because we didn't choose the easier, softer way. And it hurts God to make us suffer like this, but it was the only way. He had to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. Just as we were promised He would.

We will not regret the door. We will forgive one another, and we must forgive ourselves. God loves us even when we fail Him; he loves us even when we are weak. The Shepherd loves His lambs even when they hear His voice but don't come.

We can't drink. We must go to meetings. We must make things different, that they may get better.

I told you that you'd be my saving grace, and I was right. I just never imagined how rough the path to salvation would be. But I am grateful to you, my friend. Our road didn't take me where I thought it would, but it took me where I needed to go.

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless." - Thomas Edison

What if I can't trust myself, what if I just need some help?

"But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for." - Paul Coelho

What am I fighting for?

I thought I was fighting for love and truth. That's what I've always told myself. But I'm lost in the woods. I think I still know my goals, but my methods and motivations have become cloudy even to my own eyes.

Maybe that's the nature of battle. Whatever we're fighting for when we take up arms...when the bullets start flying, our base instincts kick in and we're just fighting to survive, no matter the cost. We act out of fear.

I have aimed with my eye, shot with my hand, killed with my gun. I have forgotten the face of my Father.

It's so hard not to feed that wolf. So easy to forget that every time we feed it, it grows stronger. And someday it will feed on me. Faithless little lamb that I am.

This is the diem we're supposed to carpe.

Yesterday, I attended a funeral for a dear man. He was 70, but his death was sudden, unexpected, tragic.

This could well be the last entry I ever write. Or the last entry you ever read. You never know what the future brings, or when your journey will come to an end.

In AA, we are taught that the most important day in our sobriety is this one. Tomorrow is nothing more than a maybe.

I couldn't afford to go to Seattle in September. But I went, and I don't regret it for a second. Either I'll get out of debt, or I'll die broke. Either way, I still spent four days with some of the most important people in my world, strengthening bonds and forming lasting memories.

I'm doing the same thing next month with my trip to Tampa. I've gotten more than a little crap from my financial advisor about being "reckless" (and irresponsible - he doesn't say it but it's implied) and I assure him that I know, and I don't care.

A year from now, I could be dead and gone. I'm not missing a single opportunity to live.

“Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.”

Adam destroyed Eve with silence.

When the serpent enticed Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit, Adam was there at her side. The original Hewbrew text describes him as "elbow to elbow" with her. The seprent tempted Eve, and she relented. And Adam did nothing. He stood in silence and allowed her to bring about the fall of man.

"Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering." - Paul Coelho

Goodbye hurts. That's the way of things. But the lack of a goodbye...that's a wound that won't heal. It bleeds and bleeds, while the wounded lies caught between the need to let go and the hope that perhaps, someday, letting go won't be necessary.

I'm a leaf on the wind.

I used to be consumed by envy and longing.

You know how it is. You see a happy couple or even a group of friends and you bitterly think "Why can't that be me?"

When I go to the park I usually spread my blanket out in a big circle of trees. There's gaps in the trees and picnic tables scattered through the grass; there's a good view of the park but also a sense of seclusion and solitude.

On Wednesday, a young couple had pulled one of the picnic tables into the shelter of the trees and hid there behind low-hanging branches. Through one of the breaks in the treeline I could see a group of teenagers playing frisbee. Through another, parents and children on the playground.

I felt blessed.

In a world with so much ugliness, I had the privilege of witnessing these moments of beauty. And perhaps someone was witnessing my own moment of beauty, stretched out on my blanket, savoring the sun and my book.

We quest for love. We yearn for it, thirst for it. We long to be part of something beautiful.

We ARE part of something beautiful. Look at the people around you. I look at my incredible sister, my friends, my beautiful nieces. All the people who bless my life. I'm a part of them, just as they're a part of me. What's more beautiful than that?

Feeding the wolves.

A Cherokee elder was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me...it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too", he added.

The Grandchildren thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied... "The one you feed."

Let's be honest - we know which wolf we usually feed. We feed the one that growls the loudest, the one that snaps at our hands. We feed it to keep it at bay while the other wolf quietly starves, trying to live off leftovers and table scraps.

We give the best of ourselves to the lesser part of our nature until it devours us. We cheat ourselves and everyone around us.

Oddly enough, this is the song that came on while I was typing this:
"We are the ones who lost our faith. We dug ourselves an early grave. We are the dead, can we be saved?"