Sometimes, joy feels wrong. And yet.
Preface:
My heart is breaking with news of war, so I have struggled with how to write this. Part of me wants to just skip it because…how are we supposed to live happily during a war? However, my braver self wants to both bear witness and point to love and joy. Can we make space for light (the only real antidote to darkness) without succumbing to desensitized, toxic positivity? I hope so; I’m trying. Thank you for trusting me (and yourself) with this complexity.
Photo by Tim Mossholder.
Sometimes, joy feels wrong.
There are many reasons for this. We may feel overwhelmed by life or world events. We may mistrust the ease of rest. We could be dealing with anxiety, grief, or survivor guilt. There are myriad private, personal, and wholly unique stories.
Many of us, I hope, are also doing the important and uncomfortable work of examining our privilege. We are bearing witness to the suffering of others and working within our spheres to respond.
We are living through a pandemic, receive rapid feeds of discord and bad news, are reckoning with brutal histories and current injustices, worry for the Earth, have our own personal stressors, work work work work work, and want to do the right thing.
That’s all honest and real, and it’s a lot. We must hold space.
At the same time, my dear, responsible, caring, hard-working, civic-minded friends, we must also hold space for light.
We are allowed to be joyful, loving, silly, relaxed, romantic, content, fun, goofy, out to lunch, mischievous, impish, idle, rowdy, and even naughty. We can be (the) light, without neglecting reality or becoming desensitized.
Experiencing the full range of emotions keeps us human and humane.
This is how we stay motivated, nourished, and resilient.
It’s how we remember what it’s all for, not just what we’re against.
It’s how we hold space for darkness and light, together—as it always seems we must.
🖤
(This post was inspired by Sasha Fletcher’s Some Thoughts About Writing About Love While the World Falls Apart.)
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