“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone, and this house just ain’t no home, any time she’s gone away.” – Bill Withers, 1971
Been writing heavy stuff lately but that’s not sustainable. Gotta find some joy in the world, y’know? The world is beautiful. People are good. They want connection and happiness.
So where am I finding joy these days? That’s a very good question. I started this post a half hour ago, and then felt like I hit a wall. I couldn’t figure out how to continue. I texted Tracy and mentioned this to her, and she asked me, “Have you made a list of things you find happy and joyful, yet?”
I hadn’t. Something is holding me back. Maybe the blockage is the fear that I’ll look silly? So be it, let’s see what comes out of me if I allow myself to look silly.
Walking
I like walking. I like moving my body around under my own power. At one point in my life I could run, and that felt great. I was never fast enough for the Olympics, but I could move and keep moving for miles and miles. And then I hurt myself, and I couldn’t do that without pain, so I stopped. I stopped running, I stopped walking, I stopped exercising. It got to the point where if I did go for a walk, I’d be out of breath.
Then I got an Apple Watch and it helped me track my movement, and in tracking that movement, and tracking my breathing and my heart rate, it gave me a measurement. And once I had metrics for what shape I was in, I could try to improve those metrics. I could bend the curve toward more movement, with less pain and stress, over greater and greater time and distance. So that now, when I walk, I can walk slow or fast (though still a walk, not a run) and I don’t catch my breath, and my heart rate stays at a moderate level, and I don’t cause myself pain in the movement or after.
I can walk, and take joy in it. A simple feeling. I’m moving, and my body is working as it should.
Friendship
A lot of words to find some joy. Is there anything else lately? My friends and family. Tracy, for one. She has been my closest friend for decades now. She and I are no longer the people we were when we first met; we have both changed and adapted and grown, but our friendship has never faltered. We understand each other. I get her, who she is, right now, even though I remember the many different people she’s been. And I feel like she gets me, too. It’s a simple joy in being known and understood.
When something happens to me, good or bad, Tracy is the first person I think “I’ve got to tell her about that.” There are others in my life I connect with, friends and family alike. But I can single out my friendship with Tracy for being built, carefully, on years of shared experiences, years of honesty and vulnerability, and genuine curiosity and trust. It’s joyful, and it gives me the skills I need to help build stronger friendships with everyone else in my life.
One more thing
You know what? I’ll finish this woefully inadequate list with a third thing, one that I have been demonstrating to myself even as I think I can’t see anything joyful. Writing. Putting together words to express my wordless feelings is joyful. Using bits of language to describe a scene, or a person, or a feeling, this brings me joy. When I can move myself past the anxiety of “not having anything to write about” I can always, always, every fucking time, write about something. It’s not a gift, it’s a skill I’ve taught myself over the span of my nearly six decades on this fucking rock.
There aren’t many of you out there reading this, but I know that you are out there, reading it. And I’d like you to know that writing this out, writing anything out, gives me joy. Thank you for helping me express it.