Justifying Joy
Joy has been on my mind; which isn’t really unusual; given that it IS my official “word” for the year. What may be more surprising to note is the fact that it’s also a word that makes me squirm. My mouth forms the word, yet my body doesn’t own it; not yet, anyway.
Saying this out loud gives me pause AND it is something I do with intention. I’m shy about admitting that at my age and stage in life this sense of being a beginner isn’t a comfortable place. If I really sit with the notion, it’s not at all as if I don’t expect to start off at the beginning of things; particularly when I’m learning something new.
It’s more that I am just now realizing just how much of a beginner I am at actually living.
Growing and learning is something I spent most of my life thinking about in a linear way; where you progressed along the path as you gained experience; thus as you aged, you automatically became more “skilled”. At my age and stage in life (I turned 50 in October of 2020) I expected and was quite looking forward to having distanced myself from those awkward days of being a beginner. The uncertainty, the trial and error, the feelings of frustration and yearning to be taken seriously. Both professionally and personally I have always had my eyes on the future; the time when all the hard work would pay off and I would arrive.
When I look back on that belief now, where exactly I thought I’d end up, I am unsure. I think it wasn’t the exact location that was as important as the distance I would have traveled and what I thought I would have to show for it; the return on my investment of time and effort; so to speak. After all, I had “skin in the game.” I’d made mistakes, learned my share of lessons and could feel the pull of gravity as I pictured myself on the downward slope of the journey.
Now imagine the shock that came when I thought I was in the home stretch and found myself not only having lost sight of the path but in unfamiliar territory with all of the scenery foreign. At the time, I felt woefully out of my element and was afraid to take another step for fear of it all slipping through my fingers. I spent an inordinate amount of time wandering; wondering how it was even possible when I had lived such a careful life?
Over the past two years my journey has shown me that growth is actually cyclical; much more similar to the life cycle of perennial plants through the seasons. Blooming; again and again and again. And the path? Well, that is often rather like a scribble sometimes circling back on itself multiple times.
Here’s the thing. I think for me, growth was often much more painful than it needed to be. In hindsight, I can see how saving up all the joy to sweeten the reward at the endpoint prevented me from building stamina for the haul.
I think we need the joy to help keep us soft, otherwise we get harder and harder as we steel ourselves against the disrupters on our path.
Just 14 days into the new year, the disrupters are larger than life. There are moments when I find myself questioning how joy can exist in the face of such discord and divisiveness and worry that focusing on it might be disrespectful of the suffering of so many others in these unprecedented times. And because I’m a questioner, my head begins to fill with many more wonderings…
Where is joy when bad things happen?
Does joy exist in hard times?
What does joy look like in action?
Is there a right or wrong time to express it or experience it?
In the face of so many questions with varied answers that bring even more questions, it is easy to become frozen and stuck and pull into myself; withdraw into the bubble my privilege allows me to escape into. I’ve done it for most of my life and know the story well. It can be isolating and full of suffering; which stunts growth.
This year I am choosing joy not because I expect to be full of happiness all the time, but because I know that it is part of embracing the imperfection in the unknown. Joy is part of how we deal with change. It can’t only exist in a vacuum during happy times. It is present in small moments and unexpected ways; even during hard times and when bad things happen. It is the color of living within the black and white of existence.
If you practice listening and looking when things seem gray and dark, your eyes and heart can find a small respite from what hurts and in that way,
we can keep moving forward.
If this blog post resonated with you or you’d like to share a question you have about JOY, please visit me over on Instagram and send me a DM or reach out through e-mail found in the contact section of this site.
