Day 2,474 —Give yourself Permission to be Happy — (with more sunrises)

I listened to my book about President Grant for the first ten-minutes of this run, and then I listened to nothing. It was calming to find the only sound that was close was my feet hitting the ground. There was a lot of salt on the sidewalks for me to crunch. 

I ran mostly the same route as yesterday. The ballet slipper are still there, but the lights are gone. I took another picture, but it didn’t really work for me. I don’t really like doing repeats anyway. 

I started thinking about childhood memories because I had to provide my favorite childhood memory for something, and I couldn’t think of one that stuck out for me. I have so many good memories from childhood that’s not the problem. As I was thinking about it more, I realized in childhood I was always waiting until I had done that next thing to give myself permission to be happy. 

This made me realize that I can still do that now. I can get up and just allow myself to decide that today will probably not be a great day, and that I just need to focus on getting through it. I need to be more conscious when I have thoughts like this, and actively remind myself that, “No, this is your life! Find joy now! Allow yourself to be happy today.”