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The Laughing Heart

- anxiety
- happiness
- health
- inspiration
- poetry
The Laughing Heart | Charles Bukowski

Dena October 13, 2012

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Welcome to Live, Love, Simple. This is our little corner of the world. We are so grateful to have you here. We are a blended family of 8! This is our story of family life, faith + grace, heart-centered living, suburban homesteading, and all of the magic + madness that happens in between. Thanks for stopping by.

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•• Scenes from Winter 2023 •• Sometimes y

•• Scenes from Winter 2023 ••

Sometimes you may feel overcome by the pain of loss. But the truth is that nothing is ever lost, it is only transferred. In this season of motherhood with little ones yet incapable of any manner of independence, and often without willing adult hands to share the burden, my ability to nurture my own spirit and my body the way that it needs has been neglected. I have wept for the loss of strength and shape that took me a lifetime to achieve.

But then I remember that the strength and the shape are still there, only transferred. While there are particular muscles that are no longer strong (both physical and creative), there are other muscles in this season that are ineffably strong. For example, the muscles that I use for bending and lifting, carrying and rocking, soothing and calming. While the shape of my silhouette has changed, what was once, is hidden now beneath another shape, a shape that carried and birthed four, precious souls; and grew and yielded to hold and then release them. (Something wonderful and luminous.)

As I approach 10 years of motherhood and 40 years of living and grieving and learning, I want to share this:

The ache and the suffering always return. No matter how hard you work, or how perfectly you arrange all of the pieces; suffering will find you. But here is the difference, with time and wisdom and grace, you come to know that you will survive it.

The waves that will inevitably come will still thrash you about, but you know, now, that they will not take you under. You know, now, that after the storm, the winds will calm and the clouds will part and you will close your eyes and allow the golden sun to kiss and warm your skin once again.

All of it is temporary. And nothing is lost, it is only transferred. So when love leaves, when death comes, when time is short—do not despair for it; look carefully and discern where you are meant to put it: the love, the grief, the energy, the time (however little).

There is always a place, you just have to look. All of it, all of it, all of it is simply in how you choose. 🤍

One of the things that we don’t talk about enoug

One of the things that we don’t talk about enough is the soul-crushing loneliness that comes from experiencing motherhood without an adequate support system… I’m not going to tie this up neatly with a bow. I’m not going to add something joyful, just to prove that I love motherhood. I’m just going to leave this here. It can be soul-crushing and despairingly lonely.

And this, too, is okay.

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” —Murakami

#twinmom #twinpregnancy #boygirltwins

“I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My

“I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.” —Anaïs Nin 💔✨

Going through things you never thought you’d go

Going through things you never thought you’d go through will take you to places you never thought you’d get to. 🤎

#ReleaseAttachmentToOutcomes #Version2023

Goodbye, 2022. ✨ “I like to imagine the first

Goodbye, 2022. ✨

“I like to imagine the first time she leaned in to kiss that stranger, how she must have felt herself falling for him, or perhaps simply away from her loneliness, and it’s like some tiny nothing that sets off a natural disaster halfway across the world, only this was the opposite of disaster, how by accident she saved me with that thoughtless act of grace, and she never knew, and how that, too, is part of the history of love.” —Nicole Krauss

Happy, Winter Solstice, friends. ❄️ Today mark

Happy, Winter Solstice, friends. ❄️ Today marks the first day of winter & the darkest day of the year. And while this may sound like the beginning of a difficult season, we must remember that today is also the return to light. Each day from here will get a little bit longer until we return, once again, to the lightest day of the year on the Summer Solstice. ✨

I am so deeply grateful to share that I feel a profound sense of peace on this solstice day. The last year has been difficult for me. It has brought me to my knees & gutted me with suffering in a way that I thought would not visit me again. But it did. I’m my last post I shared that I spent most of 2022 crying, & while that hurt, I can see now that it was a purging of things that I needed to let go of & a forging of my spirit that needed to take place for what’s about to come next.

The peace that I feel inside of me & around me today is vast—a deep knowing that everything is exactly as it is meant to be & once again, I have landed exactly where I was meant to. I am truly hopeful for 2023 & what it has in store for me.

In my stories, I just shared a few of my favorite ways to celebrate the solstice. I hope that you might try one of them out & that it may bring you the same sort of peace that is warming me today.

“Long ago God drew a circle in the sand around the exact place where you are standing right now. You were never not coming here.” 🌟

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style, in the air there’s a feeling of Christmas. Children laughing, people passing, meeting smile after smile, and on every street corner you hear—silver bells, silver bells, it’s Christmas time in the city. 🎶❄️🔔✨

Finally got to do something that I’ve been waiting to do for 6 years. The last time I took this trip, Roman was 2 & Marina was in my belly. It was so special to get there with the rest of the crew today.

Radio City, Rockefeller Center & Tree, FAO Schwartz, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Times Square, Lunch at Hard Rock Cafe, and finally strolling the Bryant Park Winter Village & getting magical hot chocolate with roasted marshmallows while watching the ice skaters. ♥️🥹🎄🧣

I have so many cherished memories of taking this trip every year with my family when I was young & getting to make it with my own babies once again today filled my heart with every joy & gratitude. (One day we’ll bring the twins. 😅) #nycchristmas #nycguide #smoresnmorenyc #bryantparkwintervillage

If I’m honest, I’ve spent most of 2022 crying.

If I’m honest, I’ve spent most of 2022 crying. I’ve been struggling to find the words to say what I’ve been needing to say. I don’t have them yet. But I have to start somewhere. With the exception of one other year that was equally as hard (2017), 2022 has been the hardest year of my adult life.

It’s been hard for obvious reasons—the ones that are painful & hard, but easy to explain. But it’s been hard for other reasons, too. Reasons that are so difficult & complex, impossible to explain. Things that I just won’t say out loud. I always end up here. Adrienne Rich wrote, “However we may scream, we are suffering silently.”

When I was pregnant with the twins, I stumbled upon the song “Chicago,” by The Staves. When I listen to it now, the excruciating pain that I was in during my pregnancy comes back to me vividly. I love the song but it also breaks my heart, violently, each time I listen to it. But just like we run our tongue over a wound in the mouth, knowing it will hurt but doing it anyway, I keep on listening.

There is a part in the song where they keep repeating the line, “I made a lot of mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes.” And that part truly guts me every time I come to it. It guts me because it’s true, because the weight of the mistakes that I have made in my lifetime have really caught up to me now. And it guts me, also, because the way they sing it makes me know that I’m not alone; and that to some degree, we all feel that weight—of our mistakes, of the things we could have done differently, but didn’t.

It’s almost over, this hard year. I won’t fool myself with optimism. I learned a long time ago that a positive mindset is not enough to turn around a nightmare. Sometimes when you’re going through hell, all you can really do is put your head down and keep going. It is a beautiful season & it will be filled with beautiful & magical things. I am grateful for them all. But I am truly tired to my very bones & sad in the way that there are no words in any language for. And I want to tell you that, especially now—in this season—it’s okay to be both. I am devastated and I am grateful all at once, and these things can coexist. 🤍

Jordan Violet — December, 2021 ♥️

Jordan Violet — December, 2021 ♥️

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