On Seeking Joy

 

My husband knows that if he wants to see the happiest version of me, he can take me to just about any restaurant with twinkly lights and a great outdoor patio, and I will be purely delighted.  Throughout our home, I have Christmas lights, termed "twinkly lights" in our home, scattered throughout the house and connected to outlets where I can push a little button to light up the space.  

When I left my first job as an NP in a nursing home to move to a job with a shorter commute, I was given this giant glass jar filled with candy.  It was sort of a joke because I used to stop by to chat with our MDS coordinator every day and grab a piece of candy from her jar as we talked.  After we finally made it through the jar of candy, I looked at the jar and thought "this jar needs some twinkly lights!"  I jokingly called it my jar of light, and it brought me so much joy to stuff it with twinkly lights and keep it by my desk. During the telehealth years of COVID, I kept it by my desk every day and felt that it brought something fun to an otherwise mundane sort of day. 

A few months ago, I was wandering around Hobby Lobby and saw this white tree with twinkly lights lit up in the entryway.  It's hard to describe, but it looks like a birch tree in the winter with no leaves on it and some twinkly lights embedded in it.  I looked at it and thought, "well this is just delightful." I saw that it was on sale and knew immediately where it would go in our home, in a little corner I'm trying to cultivate as a reading nook (but which my dog keeps trying to claim as his own).  As I sit in our front room with big windows now and write this, both my jar of light and my little tree are glowing and bringing a sense of delight to my early morning.

The photo above is from our visit to the 30A area of Florida this past weekend.  My husband and I have had a really busy 2023; the first half was spent traveling home almost every weekend to work on a rental home project.  We finally sold our first home in Indiana and turned it over into a rental property at Ocean Isle Beach, not far from where our families live.  I think some of my friends thought we were having a large time traveling there every weekend, but of the several months of traveling there for consecutive weekends, I think I saw the ocean up close about 3 times, and never for more than just a quick walk to take a break from putting furniture together.  We were also traveling a lot for CE courses that my husband was participating in to grow his dental practice; these trips came at the end of very full work weeks for us both, and while Scott sat in lectures or did surgery all day in class, I usually tried to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a while or did some of our shopping for staple grocery items that would store well to bring home. With busy healthcare schedules for us both and heavy weekend travel, there was little time for grocery shopping during the workweek before we had to travel again.

Our 30A trip was a dream for me; it's been a bucket list location for quite some time.  Scott felt medium about going-- since we are from the beach, beach vacations rarely delight him.  I, on the other hand, love a beach vacation and would take them way more often if I could only find something in them for my husband to enjoy.  We went to a music festival with bands that I have followed for many years, many of whom my husband now follows and enjoys as well. During the day, our plan was to hang out at the beach, and at night we planned to attend the concerts for the festival.  Unfortunately, a hurricane came through the day before we were to leave for this trip. I prayed and prayed that we would still be able to go, pleading with God, "we really need this time away, please make a way for us to go."  So we hopped on the plane the next day, an answered prayer, and landed just outside of Destin a few hours later. We had to navigate stormy weather, rip current warnings, and the chance of rain almost constantly that weekend, but I think we still managed to find a lot of fun in the trip.

The photo above represented my absolute joy as we wandered around the town of Seaside; there was a stretch of boardwalk tucked away with these tiny lighted wooden houses lining the way.  As a lover of all things whimsical, this small thing brought me unspeakable joy.  

What I'm learning as I get older is that I'm not as naturally prone to joy as I once was.  A younger version of myself wore a lot of bright colors, loved all things polka dotted, drove around in a little blue beetle blasting Taylor Swift, and just emanated happiness.  In my current era (thankful for Taylor Swift for giving me a term to describe these seasons of life), I'm more inclined to wear neutral colors, something I was painfully aware of in Seaside as I walked the streets decorated with women in Lily Pullitzer and bright colors, as I myself sported a black tank top and army green leggings (I later told my mom that I felt like a ogre walking around this cute little town with brightly colored outfits and people).  I have some pens for work that have polka dots, but mostly I tend toward non-patterned office supplies and bags these days.  It sometimes feels as though I've adopted this serious version of myself that feels like what is expected of me in adulthood, but which feels totally unnatural to me. 

My life lately has held layers of things that are not joyful; many of these things are areas I am still working through and holding closely as I examine their meaning, as I try to learn what God is up to that I don't quite understand.  One day I might share those things more publicly, but for now, they are things that bleed through the pages of my prayer journal and remain in the hands of God.  Aside from all of that, the work I do from day to day is in many ways not joyful either; I find deep meaning in the work that I do, but it's hard to sit in a room with someone my age battling an aggressive cancer or talking with someone's children about the fact that their elderly parent is starting to slip away from this world into the next. 

What I am learning through this season is that joy still exists here.  Most days I have to look really hard to find it, and I have to deal with the things that are not joyful first in order to get to the deep joy underneath the pain and the sorrow.  It's a tough balance-- there are two big temptations I find myself facing as I try to seek joy.  The first is the temptation ignore all of the hard things and to just move past them and seek joy-- only happy things, only good thoughts, no negativity or sadness welcome here.  That works only temporarily, and eventually I've found that the hard things float the surface again, asking to be addressed and acknowledged, not wishing to be ignored.  I've also found that this is the natural response of others when they realize I am walking through something difficult. The amount of times someone has said to me "we don't have to talk about it" causes me to realize that others must also think that you can just push past difficult emotions to live the bigger and better life.  (One day, I'll finish my book titled Small Joys.  The next book I'll write will be titled We Don't Have to Talk About It, and it will include all of the things that I wanted to talk about but didn't, due to either my own discomfort or the discomfort of other people in reflecting on hard things). I've digressed here, but the second temptation I've found in my attempts to seek joy is to allow the hard things to surround me, to let them swallow me into a dark hole of grief so that no joy can come into that space.  I've succumb to that temptation probably more than I have the former, and as cracks of light shine into the darkness, I realize that I cannot stay in this place.  

And so my journey now is to seek joy in meaningful ways, to surround myself with jars of twinkly lights and lighted trees, to have deep connections with friends who can hold the tension of both joy and sorrow. I will decorate my desk with brightly colored office supplies as I did in my younger days. I'll buy the shirt in pink or turquoise instead of white or gray.  I'll sing songs of joy and praise even when the way ahead seems grim and dark.  And I'll express gratitude for the breadcrumbs that God has left along the way, leading me back to true joy in Him through a merciful provision.  In seeking joy, I'm learning that our circumstances cannot be what define joyful seasons of our lives.  I'm finding instead that God calls us to have joyful hearts in the midst of really dark places, where joy is sometimes the only crack of light shining in.