Rediscovering Lost Joy

Oh Goddess of Joy, as one day follows the next, I must follow my heart.  The journey is one you may not be familiar with, as it is not, at least in the present, a story of Joy.  Well, that isn't exactly true either.  If I tell the truth, and I am honor-bound to do so, as an apprentice to you the sitting Goddess, as my mentor, my role model, and my friend, this story did begin with Joy.  It just is so long ago now that I barely remember the truth of it.

As is generally the case with most of these stories that begin with Joy, transition to sorrow, and then eventually return to Joy, it started with a young man and a young woman.  They were just finishing their last year of college when they met, a bad time if ever there was one, for these things to happen.  What kind of things, you ask?  Well, take one guess.  Yes, a relationship.  So many transitions during that time of life.  Almost adults, but not quite.  The nurturing environment of college, while on the path to the challenges of adulthood, just doesn't quite prepare us for something as permanent as marriage.  Close, but not quite.  Dorm life still protects us from paying the monthly rent or mortgage bill, feeds us three meals a day even if we don't have a penny to our name.  No utilities bills, so you can leave the light and heat on all day and all night with no repercussion.  And certainly, for most, none of the all-consuming challenges of taking care of a baby.

So when two people decide to make a permanent commitment to one another while still in college, they certainly don't have an accurate perspective of what they will be like, either as individuals or as a team, once they face the "Real World," and one of the most burdensome aspects of the "Real World," true financial hardship.  For me, I was very smitten with my boy; I had never met someone so cultured, so worldly, so romantic.  Everything about him was different from me, and I was hooked from the start.  But over the years, as one commitment after another entered our life, the differences in our individual coping styles became more and more of an issue, and our collective weaknesses became great sources of contention and pain.  The love story, the absolute joy we felt in the beginning, disappeared, and we both became miserable.  Not immediately, but insidiously over many years, the joy and beauty wore off and was replaced with pain and sadness.  Not a unique story at all, unfortunately, all too common.  And yes, utterly, unbearably sad.

Now, we are trying to extricate ourselves from twenty-six years of co-mingled life.  I've read somewhere that divorce is more painful than death.  Since I lost my mama just a little less than a year ago, a woman who was as much of a best friend as a parent, I feel remarkably well qualified to comment on the comparative misery of divorce and death.  I believe that it is true that divorce is relatively more painful.  It goes on and on and on.  Each day, there is a little part of my soul that wishes that today will be the day when I receive a call from him, and he says that he wishes to be friends, to try and end our marriage with some of the care and love, with which it began twenty-six years ago.  I know it won't happen.  There seems to be too much raw anger for that kind of kindness to happen.  People tell me that there is a chance that we might come to be friends again, in the future, but that I need to let go of the hope, for now, for my own sake.  I know they are right.

So, Goddess of Joy, I decided to take a job with you.  I figure that if I'm having a hard time finding the joy in life, what better way than to take a position wherein it is my responsibility to find and create joy.  I pledge that I will look carefully, mindfully, at life, and find the joy again.  I remember that joy use to be an important part of who I was.  I know that I can once again make joy an important part of who I am.  But right now, Goddess, I must admit that I am having a very hard time finding joy.

And then, just as I sit at my desk to go through the mail, what should happen, but that I find a letter, a real honest-to-goodness-paper-and-envelope letter, with a stamp and everything!  From my best friend who literally lives thousands of miles away!  I'm going to end this post, just now, so I can read.  And feel the true and deeply satisfying pleasure of Joy.