Joy Is a Verb
And it might actually be attainable, even for the moderately bitter, middle-aged women among us. Maybe.
I am not what I would consider a joyful person. I’m pretty sure I lean toward skepticism, sarcasm, and annoyance as my default states. Moderately bitter probably.
I’m funny (or I like to think so) but funny isn’t joyful. And joyful, to me, isn’t the same thing as happy. Because while I don’t think I’m a joyful person, I would consider myself a relatively happy one most of the time. Even if I’m also moderately bitter. (Probably.)
In my mind, happy is an overall state of being, like being content or calm. It’s almost passive. It’s transient.
Joyful is an active way of moving though the world. We can seek it out and choose it and cultivate it in our lives.
It’s really hard to maintain either happiness or joy when 1) we’re surrounded by toxic positivity everywhere we turn and b) it feels like we’re living through a dystopian hellscape, you know?
However, I’m a fan of listening to Black women, so when I hear them say “joy is an act of resistance,” I start to think about what that means. About the differences between joy and happiness, how they’re intertwined but not the same thing.
How happy is promoted as the ideal when what we really need more of is joy. And when I say we, I mean me.
(Sidenote: Please go read this piece of satire from Reductress, “‘Joy is an Act of Resistance!’ Says White Woman Who Engages In No Other Acts of Resistance.” I’m trying very hard not to come across as the fictional woman in that article because I know too many women just like her in real life…)(And I hope that the people who do know me know I’m actually resisting...)(Anyway…)
When you’re someone who has lived with depression and anxiety for as long as I have—and when the first time you said “hey, I’m depressed” was met with “what do you have to be sad about? Just be happy”—not being happy can feel like a moral failing.
People who aren’t happy obviously aren’t right with God, you know?
It doesn’t feel like that anymore, but that’s because I deconstructed before deconstruction was a thing and did a lot of therapy to de-couple the idea of happiness and depression as opposites. (Maybe someday I’ll talk about deconstruction if the internet can handle one more “Why I quit Evangelicalism” story...)
What I know after all that therapy is that happy people experience depressive episodes. And depressed people are capable of seeing joy.
Which brings me back to my thesis: happiness is a state of being and joy is an active choice.
We don’t always get to choose happy. Sometimes life circumstances or brain chemistry or almost literally any headline on any news outlet right now keep us in a state of perpetual funk. And that’s okay.
It’s okay to be sad sometimes. Or angry. Or whatever other emotion is vibing out up there because that’s the full range of humanity. They’re all emotions that are just bouncing around in your brain together, and I’ve done a lot of work to come to terms with the fact that the world doesn’t need me to be happy all the time.
Sometimes things just suck. A lot. We’re not doing people favors when we pretend shitty things aren’t shitty.
What I’m trying to work on, what I think “joy is resistance” is all about, is that in the midst of the suck, joy is right there for us.
It’s in Mickey-shaped beignets, or reading a really great line in a really great book. Or your favorite food. Feeling the sun on your face. Spending time doing something you love. Or with someone you love.
Joy is there for us if we’re willing to look for it, even when happiness feels hard to grasp.