This One Goes Out to the Things I Love

ode to joy

It’s no secret I’ve been sad lately. My words reflect my emotions and I’ve put a lot of words down here in this newsletter over the past nineteen days and they all show my state of mind. I’m a firm believer in naming your feelings then giving them flight, pushing them out of the nest and letting them do what they may. Your emotions need to escape your body lest they fester and manifest in ways that make you feel like you have no control over them. That is not a good world. So I acknowledge my feelings, let myself explore them, and then turn those feelings into words and put them out there. Maybe I’m not aiming them toward the person who should hear them, but they are being released, and that’s enough for me.

I don’t want to stay stuck on sadness, though. I feel empty and raw at this stage of sad, and while I can sit here and listen to Elliott Smith all day while wallowing, there’s a great need inside me to change it up, to remind myself that life isn’t all bleakness and despair; there are still things that give me joy and comfort and perhaps I should spend some time expressing my appreciation for that.

It’s not an easy thing to do, to think about joy and happiness and comfort when you are knee deep in the world of sadness. You have to really work at it, stretch the boundaries of your brain and your soul enough to wiggle your way out of the confines of your negative emotions. But it’s needed; you don’t want to break, you want to heal and you want to become whole again, and that starts with recognizing the joy and love around you.

There are grand, broad things like the friends I have surrounded myself with, friends who have checked in on me, listened to me, offered words of support and offered me care I keep feeling like I don’t deserve. And there are small, compact things like California sunsets and newly fallen snow that make my heart soar, even for a few minutes.

In between are things of various sizes and strengths that make my heart feel full and my soul uplifted: these are the things I love. The little birdhouse outside my kitchen window, where I can see the birds who inexplicably make their home for the winter in New York building a cozy nest inside the house, where I can watch them take care of each other while they sing and coo. The way my neighbors still light up their Christmas decorations in mid February, as if to say you will not take my joy from me. The house at 3am, quiet except for the sound of heat coming up through the radiators, the only light the glow of the laptop while I type these words; it’s a special kind of alone, the kind I always appreciated as necessary. There’s a comfort in the quiet that doesn’t exist at other times of day.

There’s all the little things that afford me happiness, even if it’s momentary. Listening to my albums, choosing something right for my mood, the act of putting the record down on the turntable and then getting up twenty minutes later to flip to the other side. It’s an act of care and love and the records reciprocate by filling my living room with the sound of their music, a companion of sorts.

There’s hockey and baseball on my television, things that take my mind off the here and now, help me escape the dreariness of my current existence. For a few hours I’m elsewhere - I’m cheering, I’m booing, I’m fully involved in what’s going on and I love sports for that, for the ability to put me somewhere else, a place where the crack of the bat can make my heart feel good for a time.

I have so many scraps of comfort in my life that I can blend them all together like a quilt, wear it around me to keep me warm and safe. The first cup of coffee early in the morning. The hydrangea bushes in my yard that were planted so many years ago by my grandmother. Grilled cheese sandwiches and matzoh ball soup and stealthily eaten pints of ice cream. Watching Paddington 2 for the tenth time. Snuggling with my dog. Looking at pictures from Lake Tahoe or Barcelona, reminders that there has been such good in my life, that my memories don’t have to always make me feel morose, but can make me smile and remember joy.

There’s so much to be thankful for and it feels good to be in touch with the part of me that has the capacity to love so much. I have to remember he’s not the only thing I love and his absence in my life right now does not mean I have to stop loving or being loved. I can wallow in my sadness - you need to allow yourself to do that for a time - but at the same time know that love and comfort are right here when I need them. Speaking them out loud, writing them down, putting them out there forces me to acknowledge that I am more than my sadness, that on the periphery are components of life that make me happy. And I need that. Don’t we all?