It’s a gift I do not take for granted as I went so many years without it.
I’m not taking about the manufactured joy of purchasing something you can show off or even the joy of an achievement that you can point at and say, I did that. This is just pure unadulterated joy. Joy that requires nothing but your participation. Joy of just being.
I always used to feel that I had to be “on” in any situation, be the center of attention, make sure I was heard and seen and appreciated. But as I embrace the joy in my life and in the people around me, I no longer feel the need to be the one that everyone’s listening to. In fact, I find myself sitting back more and more and just watching and listening to those I love. I don’t feel driven to talk endlessly about nothing because I am no longer afraid to not be interesting, to not be quiet. I think I always felt I had to fill the silence. Now, I embrace that same silence.
There is such joy in just sitting on the couch with my dearest, best-est friend, Zadra, drooling over Pierce Brosnan and thinking that Rene Russo didn’t need to be so naked in ”Thomas Crown Affair.” Sharing salt & vinegar chips. Talking about men. Talking about nothing at all. Such pure joy on that couch. No expectations of what I have to be. Explaining to her exactly how knitting works.
There is such joy in preparing massive stir-fry for those I love and those they love. Destroying my once-clean kitchen (okay, I did break down and wash about half the dishes and the rest are in the sink). Inhaling the garlic and the hoisin sauce and the chicken and the beef. Listening to Peter and Chairman and Peter’s mom talk in the living room while I cooked. Listening to my dear Chairman play along with the Ipod. Not having to be the entertaining hostess and drive the conversation. Just cooking, just listening, just enjoying the company.
Being driven to Koji’s for karaoke (pleasure not to drive for a change) and listening to Chairman talk about what’s on his Ipod. Silences in between that don’t have to be filled with chatter. Comfortable, easy, old friend type of silences.
Simple joy of hugging your friends. Simple joy of watching Peter and Mikee and Chairman and Damien and Erin and Vicky and everybody else sing their fool heads off. Watching the love and the joy fly back and forth between all of those amazing people. And having a lot of that love and joy ricochet on to me.
I never want to lose this. I went so very long without it. It’s like breathing now. This joy that has been given to me used to make me weep, because I think a part of me thought that I didn’t deserve this type of joy, that I didn’t deserve to be this happy. I spent so much time so far down in the darkness and struggling to just hold on to any glimmer of hope and love that it left behind deep, permanent scars. Joy had always been associated with such fear that it was going to be taken away because it usually was – and harshly, suddenly, unannounced. Leaving me stunned, shaken, terrified to trust that joy when it came around again.
When I first began this mid-life adventure, I was shown this joy and I was afraid to take it. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to rip that joy out of my heart and leave me broken and beaten on the ground. Along the way, there have been moments of joylessness, moments where something that used to give me great joy was tainted and almost taken away from me. But in those moments, one of these incredible gifts God has given me in the form of the friends who surround me would step forward and embrace me – literally or metaphorically – and bring me a little bit of joy again, just to make sure that I didn’t forget it was there.
I know I gush endlessly about this and I don’t think that any of you will ever understand how dark and how ugly my life had gotten. I don’t even think I can yet begin to understand it myself. It’s so hard to look at that pain and that anger and that unhappiness because it was so terribly frightening and so unbearably endless.
I no longer feel that I don’t deserve the joy that has been given to me. I no longer feel that it’s going to be taken away from me because if anybody tries to take it away from me, they’re going to suffer. Boy, are they going to suffer. I no longer feel that darkness hovering just out of sight, waiting for a moment of weakness, waiting for my guard to go down. Because I no longer feel the need to keep my guard up. I no longer fear that darkness.
And even those recent moments of darkness and hurt and devastation have begun to fade, begun to take a back seat to the present day wonder of my life. I will always carry those wounds with me but they are healing and, while some of them will never be fully healed, they are at least scarring over and I have stopped picking at the scabs that cover them.
So in this season of love and peace and joy, I have been given the precious gift of this:
These are some of the greatest joys in my life. Not everyone is there as I don’t have great pictures of everyone. But I have great pictures in my head and my heart.
I can never thank all of you for your love, your gifts, your passion and, most of all, the joy you all share with me every single time I see you. Thank you for effortlessly allowing me to be in that joy and live in that place. Thank you for allowing me to just be me, flawed, frightened, vulnerable, impatient, righteous, imperfect, broken-hearted, arrogant, terrified, and everything else that comes with this package.
May God bless all of you and your families this Christmas and bring back to you some of the joy that you have so selflessly shared with me. You all have my heart.
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