joy. situational? jules posed a question about joy. got me thinking (always a problem). for me, joy is / has always been situational – based on where i find myself in the moment.
EXCEPT. except one time. one time in my whole life. one of the most unusual experiences of my life. it was over a year ago. jax was in utah, in rehab. so, obviously, a tough time. bill and i were in the middle of making arrangements for our trip out there for his “graduation.” EXPENSIVE arrangements. we were generally pretty stressed out. as i recall, i think this was also during the time we were dealing with a flooded basement – loss of a lot of “stuff,” insurance claim, clean-up – pain in the ass. this was a saturday morning. i woke to bird sounds outside the open window (i ALWAYS sleep with a window open – even in the dead of winter). in that moment of coming to full wakefulness, i realized that i was experiencing --physically and emotionally -- pure joy. i realized immediately that this feeling was completely unrelated to what was going on in my life at the moment as pure joy was NOT what i would be feeling if derived from my life circumstances on that day. it just was. i wanted it to last. so i just stopped trying to figure it out. the feeling passed in a few minutes, but i don’t think i will ever forget it. i hope not.
joy and happiness. COMPLETELY unrelated, don’t you think? hmmm. maybe not so completely though, now that i think about it. i’m getting ahead of myself here.
happiness, i believe, is a CHOICE. ANYONE can be happy. it’s a hard choice, a courageous choice. but a choice nonetheless. there are people out there who live very, very happy lives under very, very dire circumstances. poverty, disability, illness. i know, i know, here’s that “stacey/pollyanna thing.” sorry. but think about it. that doesn’t mean that there are not times when life / shit happens, and “situational” sadness results. it means that you deal with it, try your fucking damnedest to deal with it or fix it (if it’s fixable), and then try your fucking damnedest to get back to happiness. try to choose it as quickly as possible. unhappiness is a bad habit to break.
anyway, since i’ve been thinking about this (i bet YOU’RE getting a headache, too), i’m wondering if joy is a choice we can make, too. in a way, i do think that i sometimes do that already. i tend to take mental photographs of my life. a lot. like at matt’s wedding. big events are easy times to do this kind of thing. everybody does this kind of thing, more or less. you find yourself in a moment where you let time stop for you and just enjoy it. the joy of it.
so now, the next step here for me, is to think about how i can make that happen more and more for me. if it’s situational (i don’t expect that i’ll experience many more of those moments i described way up there where it’s completely unrelated to life circumstances), then i need to think about placing myself in situations that bring me joy. not just the joy that happens. the joy i can help create. small moments. i’m gonna do that.
I know what you mean about the situational joy, the kind that is just "there". It's happened to me about twice. Happiness is tougher. I have to work on that--my natural inclination is to be melancholy, and since the Hunter's and Howard's is too, we reinforce that in each other. Paloma saves us, though--she loves each day, takes everything as it comes. She is truly a child of joy, and I hope it stays with her.
Posted by: TW at October 9, 2003 11:32 AMTW: have i mentioned how much i LOVE your children's names? and that joyfulness paloma has -- don't you think it's such a gift to her? some people just have it. thank you, god.
Posted by: stacey at October 9, 2003 11:36 AMStacey, thanks for all your wonderful comments. And a secret--Howard and Paloma aren't their real names--I just picked them for the reasons I put in my cast of characters. Just felt like I should go for a little anonymity on the internet, you know *wink*.
Posted by: TW at October 9, 2003 01:27 PMyeah. that "anonymity" thing. i shoulda thought a little more about that before i started blogging. too late.
Posted by: stacey at October 9, 2003 01:30 PMI think joy is situational as I cannot bring forth any memory where I truly experienced joy. Happiness yes, but that over-whelming bubbling pure sense of joy, I have not experienced. You are so right. I am also going to think of placing myself in situations which will bring me joy. Another inspirational task for me - thanks Stacey.
Posted by: Michelle at October 9, 2003 04:12 PMmichelle: i live for it. inspiration. and sexual innuendo.
Posted by: stacey at October 9, 2003 04:16 PM