{"id":7085,"date":"2011-10-25T21:18:52","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T02:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/?p=7085"},"modified":"2011-10-26T09:58:27","modified_gmt":"2011-10-26T14:58:27","slug":"yes-i-choose-to-smile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/?p=7085","title":{"rendered":"Yes, I choose to smile."},"content":{"rendered":"

I know I smile a lot.\u00a0 Often others tell me to let my true feelings out, not to hide under my big smile.\u00a0 They “worry.”\u00a0 And maybe I am masking fear, anxiety, but isn’t it my choice to carry on how I know?\u00a0 I hate making others uncomfortable.\u00a0 I really don’t think it’s about me and hiding my feelings, it’s a little about protecting others.\u00a0 So, I smile.<\/p>\n

I will smile.\u00a0 It’s what I do.\u00a0 Even when tears are streaming over something as trivial as a cheesy Hallmark commercial, or I’m at my wits end with the girls about to explode in anger, or even sitting quietly at MUSC holding my baby’s hand as she lay on a table solely supported by tubes and machines, I smile.\u00a0 It’s what gets me through. It is what has made me get to this point in life, without falling to pieces.\u00a0 A smile is my promise of hope to myself and anyone else who notices.<\/p>\n

Sure, I have my days of feeling completely defeated and I sob.\u00a0 I sob to my husband, to my God.\u00a0 I think everyone has to let it all out at some point.\u00a0 But, I feel better when I smile.<\/p>\n

“You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have” -author unknown.<\/p>\n

So true.<\/p>\n

I’m not strong.\u00a0 I do what I have to do to carry on because I don’t have a choice.\u00a0 If I did, my youngest daughter would have a perfect heart and a perfect brain. \u00a0 I would have hair, not cancer.\u00a0 McCanless would not have had to grow up so quickly learning way too much about how fragile life is.\u00a0 Mel would have hair.\u00a0 (Wink)\u00a0 But life is life and so much about life is amazing.\u00a0 I choose to focus on those wonderful days.\u00a0 I choose to smile and remember those wonderful days, not dwell in the hardships.<\/p>\n

Although, those hardships do make us that much more passionate, and make us hold on to what truly matters most.<\/p>\n

So isn’t that something so smile about?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know I smile a lot.\u00a0 Often others tell me to let my true feelings out, not to hide under my big smile.\u00a0 They “worry.”\u00a0 And maybe I am masking fear, anxiety, but isn’t it my choice to carry on how I know?\u00a0 I hate making others uncomfortable.\u00a0 I really don’t think it’s about me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7085"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7089,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7085\/revisions\/7089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}