Joy

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Nearly four years ago, at the age of twenty six, I went through what is best described as a nervous breakdown. Although the root cause of this breakdown is something I do not feel appropriate to publicly share, my life circumstances, and that of our family, were and still are no secret. I had just completed my graduate degree in three semesters rather than the typical four. I was pregnant with our third child during the last two semesters of school and had given birth six weeks following graduation. I was struggling to transition back to being a full time stay at home mom. My husband had just quit his job. We were preparing to move to another state so that he could start graduate school. We were without an income. Worst of all I hated life. I hated what it had given me. And I spent every single day for a six month period trying to convince myself that I should not end my life because to me it was already over. Every day during my kids quiet time I would hide in my closet and sob. I was devoid of hope. I believed I was nothing.

My feelings, combined with the unpredictability and instability of life, left me feeling so overwhelmed I did not even know where to begin as I awoke each morning and desperately tried to gain some solid footing throughout the day. As someone who has always functioned better with a visual, written list I grabbed a piece of leftover construction paper sitting on the counter one night and wrote:

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

Laundry

That was it. That was what was essential. Food and clothing. If I could complete this list by providing and cleaning up three meals a day and commit to washing, drying and putting away one load of laundry I would and could manage to survive. Every night after the kids went to bed I filled out this list on a piece of paper and stuck it to my fridge. I physically crossed off each item as it was completed and mentally crossed off each day as I said my evening prayers.

I kept telling myself day after day that eventually if I did enough day and after days there would come a day when I was happy again, when life was good again, when I was myself again. I kept telling myself that if I worked hard enough, pushed hard enough, fought hard enough that I could change my life and make it into what would make me happy (although at the time I did not believe I could ever be truly happy again). I lived and breathed for the promise of tomorrow and for all the things that I believed would in some way make my life right again.

That nervous breakdown nearly four years ago was only the beginning. Although life always has its ups and downs, in the past four years my life has been a condensed, perpetual cycle of never ending challenges, disappointments, and heartaches. I have literally spent almost every ounce of energy just trying to stay alive because I have felt so broken, so completely shattered. My daughter Dove’s death, I was waiting for it, expecting it. It was just par for the course. I told my husband before checking into the hospital that I knew she was gone because it was just my luck. I told the nurse I had been waiting this whole pregnancy for something to go wrong. It’s why I never shared my pregnancy on social medial until I was six months along.

There, as I sat in the hospital waiting to deliver Dove, I thought of how much I wanted to jump ahead six months. I wanted more than anything to not experience the depths of despair I was sure to encounter upon seeing her precious little face and then having to say goodbye. I wanted to skip all of of those day after days I was about to live through, trudge through, fight through. I wanted to skip it all and be months ahead, in happier days, possibly pregnant again. However, upon returning from the hospital I realized that I could be living for a day that might never come. What if it takes me another year to get pregnant again? What if I miscarry again? What if I deliver a stillborn child again? What if things do not get better, only worse. What if the tomorrow I cling to, the tomorrow I live for is never realized? What happens if I continue to place my happiness in the future, a future that does not exist? After all, this pregnancy to me had signified the possible turning of events, the promise that tomorrow would be bright, a tomorrow that turned out to be dark as the night.

So no more dreams of happiness, no more wishfully believing it can be mine. I know now, as I did not know before, that it is already mine. It has always been mine. These two months have been so very hard, but they have also been so very beautiful. For with this deeper understanding of what it is to feel pain I now have a deeper understanding of what it is to feel joy. The colors of life, the complexity of emotions that fill it have become more rich, more dynamic, more beautiful than they were before. Joy, it’s in the little things. I have found it, created it, basked in it in the most unexpected of ways. Happiness is a choice. Happiness is mine today.

It's the drudgery of housework...

in the tedious task of juicing oranges...

in getting off the park bench to play with my child...

in something as simple as putting new sheets on the bed...

in grocery shopping...

in serving others...

Happiness cannot wait till tomorrow. Joy is not just found in doing the things that make you happy, it is choosing to be happy in all that you do.