Leave The Screen Door Open

Don’t forget to find some kind of joy. I think we were created to find it as often as we possibly can. Why else would these bodies of ours come built with their own little reward system for it?

Maybe joy isn’t something frivolous we’re supposed to earn after all the important work is done. Maybe joy is important work. Maybe those little bursts of good are the body’s way of saying, Yes. This. More of this while you’re here.

And if you ever need a reminder of genuine joy, find a child. They’re good teachers because their joy is authentic and contagious. Can you seriously watch a laughing child and not smile? Or watch an 83-year-old lady light up clear to her toes because the nurse sang Happy Birthday to her? If you don’t feel the energy of her joy fill the room when she cackles, well darlin’, I ain’t sure if you’re living.

Maybe that’s why joy feels almost rebellious sometimes. The world will give you a thousand reasons to postpone it. There are bills to pay, wars carrying on, bodies hurting, dishes in the sink, and somebody somewhere making money by convincing you… that, you don’t have enough. But joy doesn’t seem particularly interested in whether you’ve earned her. She’ll show up in a cigarette outside a nursing home, a ripe tomato still warm from the sun, a song played too loud, or an old woman cackling because somebody remembered she had a birthday.
Maybe our job isn’t to chase some great big happiness. Maybe it’s just to notice when joy comes wandering through and have sense enough to let her in. Hell, leave the screen door open. She might bring somebody with her.

Joy doesn’t require the absence of suffering. That’s the part we forget. We keep waiting for everything to be okay before we give ourselves permission to enjoy being alive. But some of the purest joy I’ve ever witnessed showed up right in the middle of pain. I’ve heard laughter in rooms where somebody was dying. I’ve watched families tell stories around a deathbed until everybody was crying and laughing at the same time. I’ve watched a man whose body was literally falling apart sit outside in the sunshine and enjoy a cigarette like he’d been handed the whole damn world for ten minutes.

Suffering and joy aren’t opposite ends of the road. Sometimes, they’re sitting right beside each other on the same porch.

Leave the screen door open. Dance in the kitchen. Create. Pop the zit.  Whatever it takes, find joy, y’all.

Eat the Debbie cake!!!