When was the last time you felt joy?
Today. The last time I felt joy was today, is today. The thing about joy is I believe it to be a state of being. I choose to live in joy. I choose to have joy be a thread that connects the moments of my life together. Joy isn’t just happiness. Joy isn’t all good. Joy is resilient happiness. Knowing that no matter what everything is ok, it’s choosing to find a silver lining. It’s that feeling when you feel full. Ya know what I mean? Like those moments that hit you and you just feel full of life. Brings you to tears almost. Or sometimes more than almost.
Today I went for a run. A run I was supposed to go on yesterday, but yesterday as a day in itself felt hard. So I thought today we’d try it. I wasn’t excited about the run. Both because it was just going to be hard, and well movement in general just feels harder these days. But I knew I needed to go, so I went. A mile in it felt tough but I was holding the pace my coach had me aiming for. Two miles in I decided if I just hit 6 of the 9 I was supposed to at the intended pace I would be happy. All things considered my standards are just a little lower these days, and I don’t mean that in a self deprecating way, just a realistic how I’m choosing to deal with this pandemic kind of way. Four miles in I knew I could do it. And then six miles in I thought about going for the full half marathon now, and at seven miles in I nixed that plan and decide just to finish the nine strong. Nine miles at my goal race pace. I’d never done that before, and the last quarter mile I just couldn’t wait to go home and tell my coach.
I walked into my backyard, switched from my running shoes to my sliders, grabbed my phone and sat on the patio not wasting a moment to send a screenshot of my splits to my coach. And then without warning or expectation tears filled my eyes. Overwhelmed with emotion I got a “oh HELL yes” back from my coach. And I just sat in it. Crying a little, smiling a lot.
Today wasn’t a race day. It was just another run. But in these days where I’m having a hard time fully showing up for myself, my job, my friends, my family. In these days where there isn’t much control over our own lives. In these days where we wake up and are just trying to survive. Just trying to get through each day, just one at a time, without hopefully contracting a deadly virus that we won’t even know if we have for a week or two after. Just trying to wake up and create some resemblance of a routine that can bring us a little hope, a little normalcy, and something to keep us occupied as we all move through this unknown. Unknown both in what it is, if we have it, if our loved ones have it, if it will ever go away, what life will look like when it does.
In days like these, I guess it just felt good to show up for myself. Fully show up. To push myself in a way that feels normal to me, and to have my mind and body step up in a way I know it can. I guess in days like these when everything feels harder, and nothings quite adding up, it felt good for me to be able to overcome something. To control and have power in something.
“Discovering joy does not, I’m sorry to say…save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily, too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet, as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreak without being broken.” -Archbishop Desmond Tutu
So today, right now, I feel joy.
