Hunting joy

You’re all probably wondering if I know how annoying I am.

Answer: Yes. I do.

If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you know that I started my annual Joy Hunt a couple weeks ago. I take pictures of the word ‘JOY’ and post them with the hashtag #joyhunting. And then people text me pictures of the word ‘JOY’ and I post those too. Some post them straight to my page.

How can someone be so JOYful all the time? Doesn’t anything ever go wrong in my life? Or is my life so perfect that I’m qualified to coach others on how to make THEIR lives better?

Nope. None of the above.

I’ll tell you a secret: The reason I’m hunting JOY so rabidly is because… I need it.

If you’re friends with me in real life, you know this to be true. I’m fairly quick to admit my own struggles and can go from confiding to whining much quicker than I’d like. I am not necessarily a joyful person. I have to go out and look for it, remind myself of it daily. Hourly. Sometimes every minute.

One of my buddies informed me that to her #joyhunting sounds like finding joy and killing it, which is also something I could be quite adept at, if I let myself. We all know that type of joy hunter. Let’s call them joy POACHERS. They’re not happy and misery loves company, so if they come across joy, they kill it before it can ruin their pity party. (For the record, I was thinking more along the lines of Easter egg hunting or something like that.)

Christmas joy does not come easy for me. And I KNOW it doesn’t come easy for you either.

I have friends who will be facing their first Christmas without a loved one.
I have others who are celebrating their first Christmas on the treacherous journey of adoption or a blended family.
I know a couple of families facing what may be their LAST Christmas WITH a loved one.
Maybe you can’t spend the holidays with your family because of death, distance or debt.
Maybe this year has just sucked so much that you are insulted by the idea of seeking joy.
Maybe another year has passed at a job you hate or in a dead marriage.
Maybe something happened this year that was so jarring, you knew nothing would ever be the same and this is your first Christmas in the new normal.
Maybe there is just a feeling of scarcity over your life: time, love, money. Just not enough of anything.

But as I’ve said before, there is no perfect Christmas. There never has been and there never will be. There is only broken Christmas. And that’s just fine because most of us feel broken anyway. No need to pretend. (I’m working on rewriting an old favorite and calling it “Let It Suck, Let It Suck, Let It Suck,” to be followed by a less creepy and more PC version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”)

As a life coach, I consider it part of my job to celebrate any and all progress, no matter how small. As creatures who are for the most part averse to change and risk, any time someone has the guts to take a step into the unknown I make a big deal about it.

It’s become somewhat of an ethos for me: Celebrate everything.

This past September, a friend of mine died suddenly and tragically on Brad’s birthday. Brad doesn’t really care about his birthday, thinks it’s just another day. I, however, LOVE birthdays (mine and others’) and like to make as big a deal about it as possible. So it’s been a tug of war: to celebrate (like I want to) or not to celebrate (because the birthday boy doesn’t want to, and it’s HIS BIRTHDAY).

But this year after I got the call, I stopped crying long enough to run into Publix for a Carvel ice cream cake and some candles. After presents, I lit the candles in the kitchen, walked into the dining room singing Happy Birthday with tears in my eyes, daring anyone to protest.

Before I got any pushback, I informed my family, “We are celebrating this, okay? Because HE (pointing to Brad) is still here and I (pointing at my own tear-stained face) am VERY HAPPY ABOUT IT. Any questions?”

(There were no questions.)

You can’t wait for life to stop sucking before you celebrate. You have to celebrate through the suck, in spite of the suck, even MORE BECAUSE OF the suck. The most precious joy in the world is the joy that has been hard won, joy that has been fought for.

A bit of Lindsey trivia for you: I love pistachios.

Not pistachio-flavored things. Not pistachio-encrusted things. Just straight-up pistachios.

But they’re so DANG EXPENSIVE I never buy them. (Santita tortilla chips for $2 a bag is more my style.)

So when I saw shelled pistachios as BOGO at Publix last week, you better believe I BO’d and GO’d like a boss.

And that first bag was gone in one sitting.

There were no shells. No work required. I inhaled those things without a second thought. And they were good. They were… fine.

But I didn’t enjoy them as much as I had in the past. They were no longer an extravagant treat. They weren’t even that noticeable. Just another snack I could absentmindedly eat while I was working.

I ate twice as many as I meant to, and enjoyed them about half as much. Because there was no work involved. Nothing to slow me down and make me savor the reward of the process.

Sometimes I feel like God whispers tenderly into my bad mood, “You want joy? You’re gonna have to work for it, my girl.” Because He knows all too well that the celebration is so much sweeter after a sacrifice.

I had big plans on losing about 15 pounds before my sister’s wedding in August. It never happened. I started and stopped my health regimen several times and just didn’t stay on the wagon long enough to see any results.

So two nights ago I’m looking in the mirror in distaste and disappointment as I’m trying to get ready for Brad’s big foundation Christmas party. It’s my favorite party of the year, by far. And I had no idea what I was going to wear.

I hadn’t bought anything new because I don’t like the size I am right now. But ready or not, it was party time. So I smashed myself and my extra 15 pounds into my most forgiving little black dress, went to the party and had a great time. I just showed up and celebrated anyway.

We must train ourselves to seek out the joy, to insist on the celebration. Whatever extra weight we’re carrying (literally AND figuratively) is invited to the party as well.

The only perfect Being to ever walk on this planet was not born under perfect circumstances. God’s perfect plan of redemption has always involved a fairly questionable cast of characters. God does not wait on perfection to act.

And neither should we.

We must be relentless joy hunters (not joy poachers or joy hogs). Because there IS joy to be found, this time of year and always.

We must train ourselves to seek it out and when we find it, we must celebrate the crap out of it, no matter the surrounding circumstances.

Any questions?