by Alona Jarden
A healthy life is a life that includes smiling, giving up, acceptance, fighting, triumphs, failures, friendships, love, and dealing with all of it together.
The healthy way to live our life is to understand that life is not a manufactured line of successes and that an integral part of it includes disappointments, which do not indicate that we failed, but rather that we overcame and surpassed. Our disappointments testify that our lives are worth living, so live it to the fullest!
Giving Thanks
My favorite time has arrived.
It's time to give thanks!
I love this section the most in each of my books, as it forces me to look at things that I took for granted every day and appreciate them.
I'll start with thanks to the one with whom I open my eyes every morning and close them every night to my sweet husband, Guy.
I remember, at the beginning of our journey, I was amazed by how comfortable you were with yourself. It might, in truth, be more accurate to say that I remember how I envied you.
My love, you may not notice the changes you helped me introduce to the way I accept myself, but as I sit and think about the path I took since I met you, I'm excited.
Thanks to you, I walk around comfortably in my home without worrying about having to look good. Thanks to you, I dropped my high heels and now walk with comfortable flat shoes and have no more back pain. Thanks to you, I feel that I can do what I really want to do and not just what would make me look more feminine and attractive, and I want to thank you that despite me not doing that, you still make it clear to me that I really am all that you have imagined and more.
My beloved husband, thank you for never giving me the feeling that the reason you're with me is my appearance, and yet, thank you for making me feel desired, beautiful and loved. Thank you!
As in every book I write, after thanking my husband, I take a deep breath and thank my four sons. Not long ago, my eldest celebrated his bar mitzvah. As a joke to break the ice, when I took the microphone to say a few words to him, I started by saying that he gave me stretch marks, and now it's payback time, then I followed by telling everyone how he was as a baby. The audience laughed, and I had a happy smile on my face, but the words I said were actually accurate. My body is damaged as a result of having four boys born in four years. Nothing is as it used to be, so how come my smile honestly comes from the inside of me and radiates out? It's thanks to you, my amazing children. It's thanks to moments when I hear you explain to your teachers that no one is perfect, and then you add that I'm the exception to that. I'm smiling thanks to moments when I'm angry and even yell loudly, yet you squint your beautiful eyes at me and remind me that even in times of crisis, you still see me as your own wonder-woman. I'm truly happy thanks to your non-judgmental points of view, which lifts me up even on the toughest days and keeps me floating high in the clouds.
My beautiful boys, a day will come when the four of you will make four women (or man, no judging) the happiest alive, and when that day comes, I'll sit leisurely, fold my hands in the hands of your father and will know that I did at least one thing right in this life. So thank you!
I would also like to take advantage of this opportunity and thank the universe for placing Katherine Grossfeld in my way.
Katherine, as I already mentioned, I don’t believe me finding you was a mistake. I believe that things worked out easy for us because me and you were meant to be. I want to thank you for falling in love with my characters, for reading through the night each chapter that I sent, for perfecting my words, making them sound more American and putting up with my nonsense. Thank you for taking the time and investing it in me and my writing. Thank you for reading Michelle and Don in such a clever and sensitive way, and thank you for making such a well-appreciated effort. You're amazing, and I hope (for my sake) that we'll keep being in each other's way.
As I reviewed Gina Salamon's editing of my book, I found myself tearing up with excitement and I'm so honored for the opportunity to thank her in this section.
Dearest Gina, In addition to perfecting my words, and making all the emotions come through sharper and edgier, you added comments along the way detailing your experiences while reading. I can't even begin to explain how moved I was to learn that you teared up, laughed out loud and were in suspense for the next chapters.
I want you to know how much I appreciate you, so thanks! Thanks for being so easy-going, for keeping my voice while adding your own, for loving Don and accepting Michelle, and for allowing me to be my non-politically correct me with you. Thank you!
As usual, I save my last thanks to you, my amazing readers. Thank you for reading this section as well, the part that explains what drove me to write in the first place. Thank you for posting your reviews (you have no idea how happy that makes me), thank you for reaching out on social media with your personal reading experiences (you have no idea how stronger that makes me) and thank you for helping me fulfill my dream to be a novelist (you have no idea how proud that makes me).
Thank you so much!
I'll end with my usual wish, and hope that we will meet again soon, at the final words of my next novel.
Thank you all for reading me,
Alona Jarden
More Books by Alona Jarden
Alona is an international best-selling author of Contemporary Romance and New Adult novels. She published 19 books in the Hebrew language and now is in the process of translating all of them to English.
To keep updated with her latest releases, follow her Author Profile in Amazon here
Previously translated:
Katarina: A suspense & thriller romance novel of a long forgotten mystery