joy
Difficulty comes unbidden, unprovoked, and unexpected. It happens without my choosing. Some mornings I wake with the weight of every regret resting on my chest pressing me down into the mattress.
So many days start like this, and when they do, joy and struggle aren’t contradictory or antagonistic. Instead, they must be held in tandem. Simultaneously. In a give and take reciprocity.
It would be so simple to hide under the covers. To turn on the TV. To let the sound of mindless consumption and vapidity lull me into apathy and passivity. It would be so easy, and yet it would happen joylessly.
But if I choose to struggle to my workbench, if I strive against the hurt that pulls me to live listlessly, if I wrestle against it and do the hard work of making something, joy is the thing that will be waiting for me.
I hate writing, yes. It forces me to sit somewhere I’d rather not be. It forces me to face things I’d rather not see. It’s tiring, and exhausting, and depleting. There are days when I wish it wasn’t necessary. When I wish it would no longer be asked of me.
But when I choose to accept the difficulty, and someone reads something that I’ve written that makes them feel held and seen, that’s where joy lives for me.
May the weight that holds you down be the ground upon which you stand.
May you find the courage to trade easy apathy for the holy struggle of making things.
May you discover a joy in teh labor that refuses to ever leave.
In case no one’s told you today, I love you with all my everything.
***special thanks to Emily Foucart for an amazing reply to a paid subscriber video that inspired this. You can find the video and Emily’s comment here.
Once again, this resonated deeply. Thanks for sharing! I honestly have a hard time believing that you hate writing, but then I also get it.
I definitely have felt held and seen here in your writing, thank you for that