Joy

As I soared through the park, I looked down at my pink sneakers resting on the platform of my well-worn Razor scooter.  The sun was bright.  The wind blew through my hair.  I could hear both an Eastern Towhee and a Northern Cardinal in the background and the American Robins were plentiful in the grass. The amount of joy rushing through me took me back to my childhood days. 

When I think about the last six months, it is an overwhelming number of moments like these that come to mind first. That’s not to dismiss the pain, the countless tears, the day I yelled at the waves of the gulf, the sleepless nights, the loss of weight due to what I call the “divorce diet”, etc.  All those things happened too but they don’t define me. It is my joy that more closely aligns with me and that shines through most these past months. 

So where did this joy come from in the darkest days of my life?  Is it my response to the darkness? Or was it always there before?  If it was always there before, what was holding me back before?

I feel like I have generally been a fairly positive person. I notice things that others don’t-find the beauty others walk past. But I don’t recall feeling a sense of joy like I do today on such a consistent basis, at least not in recent years. 

As I write this post, I can’t help but be reminded about the time I stomped and danced in puddles one rainy morning on the way to work just a month or two ago. It was the first time I had done that since I was a child. It’s that uninhibited joy that feels new.