Last week I was having a cuppa with a friend and was showing her all of my recently created photo books- and there are a lot! I have gone back to about 2015 and made a book for every big trip that I have taken since then, and a couple of them are of holidays with Claytie. She was looking at one of those in particular and commented quite unguardedly, about a selfies of the two of us, saying ‘oh you don’t smile like that anymore’.

That was something that really hit home for me. It’s not something I have ever really thought about before. Of course I still smile – I have a whole lot of fabulous things in my world to smile about, but I absolutely don’t smile like that anymore. That happy-go-lucky way of feeling like you know that the future is ok, that you’ll always have your person and that they will always have you. The taking for granted that you don’t have to do all of the worrying in your own. The smile that is completely secure and hasn’t yet been touched by grief.

These days, I guess there is a shadow, a guardedness and a whole lot of ‘life experience’ that won’t ever go away. It’s all of the changes and hard moments that have happened in the last 4 1/2 years, and that’s ok too… it’s me getting older and (maybe) a little bit wiser…. And it’s not all heavy all of the time. Like I said earlier, I have a whole lot of reasons to still be smiling, and I know that there will be a whole lot more of those as well.

This week is likely to add a few more shadows tho, with Tropical Cyclone Alfred all set to make a visit to our part of Queensland. We have had two pretty significant flood events in the last 10 years, so there is a little bit of nervousness happening. Some of the boys have been sending all the updates to the family group chat, so I know they are feeling it a bit too! I’m not entirely sure what needs to be done in terms of preparation – this will be my first cyclone! – so I guess, like with everything else, we will just see what comes!