I’ve always seen happiness as a privilege—something just out of reach for someone like me, someone who has only ever longed for safety. I spent a lifetime searching for protection because I grew up without it. But for the first time, I feel like I can want for more. I see now that happiness isn’t some distant, elusive thing, it’s something that could exist in my life if I just keep moving forward.

Today marks my mom’s fifth birthday since her passing, and I’m struck by the realization that nothing is the same. I am not the same. Nothing in my life is the same. And yet, the trauma of her last day—finding her body—feels as raw as if it happened yesterday. In the early days, my therapist spoke about grief in fractions of time (1 month, half a year, etc.), telling me that, eventually, her death wouldn’t be the first thought in my mind. At the time, I couldn’t imagine that ever being true. But now, I see that it is.

This year, I worked on her birthday. Last year, I had to take the day off because, the year before, I was unbearable to everyone around me. This year, all I did was share a simple photograph I had never posted before, paired with a quiet birthday wish. A quick scroll through my Instagram still reveals her presence every few squares—proof of how tightly I’ve been holding on. But I’m starting to understand that I don’t have to grip so hard to keep her with me.

For so long, I chased safety as if it were something outside of me, something I had to find. But I’m realizing now: I am strong enough to be safe. Because I am strong. I am working through it.

Life isn’t easy. And life without the people we love most will never be the same. But maybe, just maybe, happiness isn’t as far away as I once thought.

j.b.