Choose Joy

How can one person possibly be filled with such immense and intense feelings all the time. Sometimes I wonder if my heart is simply going to explode. My heart feels so tired one minute and then so completely filled up with love and joy the very next minute. The capacity our heart has to continue to make room for everything we pack into it amazes me.

I feel love and joy for so many things, people, moments, and memories. And yet, this same space holds me when I am sad and lonely.

I found myself spending more time than I care to admit feeling constantly disappointed by people, bitter, angry, and absolutely grief stricken. Yet, my darkest moments of this year were, and continue to be, always overcome by joy. Always.

This year of 2022 brought the death of my dad, the death of one of my dearest friends, and unrelenting grief over the senior year Nikolai would not experience. And yet, I was met with joy on every corner of that grief.

Nikolai’s graduation party.

Summer vacation of all vacations.

Memorial Day garage sale.

Strangers in the cemetery.

Random acts of kindness.

Unexpected meetings.

Impactful rocks.

Memories.

Love. Pure love.

Godwink after Godwink.

Are you looking for the joy? Because as much as I didn’t want it this year, joy filled my every day in some capacity, big and small. Thank God. I wanted to live in heartbreak this year but that isn’t what life is all about. I can be sad. I can cry. I can feel all the grief. My heart can take it, but it also doesn’t want me to sit in it.

I miss Nikolai. I miss my dad. I miss my friend. Yet, someday I will see them again. For now, I have a whole lotta people to wrap up in love right here on this physical earth.

I choose joy. I choose the light over darkness.