joy. me first.

The idea of “joy” has been dancing around in my head a lot lately. Growing up, joy was purely a religious thing. I told my husband the other day that when I see the world joy, I see some live, laugh, love type sign that’s popular among Christians: JOY = Jesus, Others, Yourself. He gave me a long, “Wooow” and the idea of joy continued to stay unsettled in my head.

I haven’t been a practicing Christian for a long time, and without a religious framework, it’s hard to pin down what “joy” looks like to me these days. Personal joy, where I’m the primary benefactor (not Jesus or others) is ambiguous and foreign. I could peel the layers back with some psychoanalysis and we could probably get there, but I’ll leave that to the professionals.

A lot of the mainstream commentary on joy is directly tied to commerce and capitalism: a DTC paint brand tells you that you’ll be more joyful if you buy this paint and change your bedroom walls, a women’s lifestyle brand sells you joy via a yearly planner with stickers that say “Yasss” and “You go girl.” A life coach tell you that for $300 you can join their group coaching program to unlock your personal joy.”

I, no, WE, have to believe that joy can’t be bought. We have to believe that the power of joy is within our reach, free of charge.

My vision for 2021 is to explore this more; to find joy, to make joy, to keep joy. Coming off of 2020, that feels like a big task because lord knows we have some unfinished business to attend to, but still, I’m thankful for this reset and time to reflect. It would be hard for anyone to describe 2020 as joyful, but if I had to go back and do it again, I’d wish that I had a perspective about how to hone joy in the midst of the devastation. To let joy fuel me as I navigated the sirens and helicopters, the hard conversations, the protests, the election, and the sadness.

There will likely be a lot of that in the early half of 2021, but this time, I’m hoping to make some joy along the way.