We have booked the ferry to France many times over the last couple of years and we cancelled the ferry to France many times… it’s hard to believe we will be actually going this time… I’ll let you know if we do.

This time it seems different. Like when you don’t eat ice cream during winter and the first one on a grey St. Patrick’s Day tastes better than you remembered. I am being reminded of small towns in France, huge mountains in Spain and tiny cups of coffee in Portugal. It’s like I’m already there, it’s like up until this ferry booking I didn’t allow myself to think of what I was missing and now I can’t stop thinking.

But I’m also forcing myself to remember the wet days, the grey days, the boring days, the ugly towns, the tiredness, the overwhelm and the underwhelm. Because it’s all part of the journey and if my expectations are just for the beautiful and the sunny then I can add disappointment to the list of expectations!

I love this quote in Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat.

Happiness is greater or equal to your perception of the events in your life minus your expectations of how life should be.