Joy. It isn’t something I’ve felt a lot of lately. There are several reasons as to why… And I am trying to find my joy again but I know there are a few things I probably need to deal with first.

What has brought me joy? Well, I just ate a couple of really good gingersnaps with my late night coffee. And a couple of nights ago, I slept laying down for almost four hours in a row (for the first time since the embolism).

I keep having to Google word definitions, which is weird. I mean, I know what the words mean, but I am struggling to place them in my orbit. For the curious, joy is a deep and strong feeling of great happiness, pleasure, or satisfaction. The cookies may not have been truly joyful, but the laying down to sleep was.

The definition is pretty concrete and hard to live up to! Great happiness, pleasure, or satisfaction is a tall order. I don’t want to diminish the definition, but people could work a long time to find joy and come up empty handed. Between work, family, and just getting through the day-to-day, finding time for joy by that criteria might be difficult.

Maybe, I (we) need to start smaller. Like sleeping laying down. Or the good gingersnaps. I don’t know. Joy doesn’t have to be the million dollar lotto win. A text from a friend, a hug from your grumpy kid, someone telling you they love you.

Perhaps our expectations have been blown out of proportion. Why couldn’t joy just be a feeling of happiness, pleasure, or satisfaction? Why make everything ‘great and strong’. Start small and work our way up to ‘big things’. It isn’t that we can’t have more, couldn’t achieve more, but let’s not fail out of the gate.

I am going to take my cookies and eat them too. That sounds like joy I can get behind.