The Joy of Living

It's been a while since I journaled on this blog, but today I was captured by two books, causing me to take pause and temporarily let go of the "overwhelmingness" that has become my life. Although I'm not an avid reader, I have made a pledge to myself to read both of these books.

The first book was gifted to me by a friend. The title is "Strangers Tend to Tell me Things - A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Coming Home" by Amy Dickinson. She is the voice behind the popular advice column, "Ask Amy." Part of her book is about the caring of her mother at the end of her life. Although I haven't yet read it, the book appears to contain stories about her own way of handling love, the loss of a loved one, and grief - as well as many humorous stories about menopause, blind dating, and stepping in to her own middle ages.

Taped to the outside cover of the book is a note from Ms. Dickinson and from my friend that reads:
"Grief isn't something that can be hurried. You can't move through it faster than it moves through you." -- Amy Dickinson
"Sydney, I thought of you at least a dozen times while reading this. I hope you'll enjoy it, too, especially the sections about mothers and daughters." -- Love, Wendy

The second book is one that actually came out today entitled "Option B" by Sheryl Sandberg. She's been on the talk show circuit these past few days, and I watched her interview on two of the morning shows.

The last chapter of her book is about how she learned to find joy after the sudden death of her husband. In that chapter she speaks about a self-imposed challenge to -- at the end of each day -- remember three things that brought her joy.

After hearing that, I decided that I must do the same thing.

This morning I was looking back at one of my earliest posts on this blog. I wrote it on a day when I recognized that the passing of my mother had put me in a vacuum and had even slowed my ability to respond and react. I wanted to share that post with a friend who just last week lost her wife (which I did), but as I re-read the post, I realized that I've not actually moved from that place of stagnation myself.

Of course, there are many things that fill my heart with joy and love, and there are many people in my life that comfort and feed me. I know I am blessed. But I am also extremely busy, and I now find that I have become overpowered by that business - the distress factors in my work life - which spill over into my personal life.

So when I heard Sheryl Sandberg speak about her challenge, I decided that beginning tonight and every night going forward, I will also find three things that have brought me joy during that day.

Tonight I will begin with a few things that I will consider a given from this point forward -- the fact that I awoke this morning, that I am married to one of the greatest guys on this earth, and that - together with my husband - we laid the perfect foundation for our son who is a wonderful, hard-working and ethical man today. I will never take those three things for granted, but for the purposes of this challenge, I also will not include them in my daily list.

So, what three things brought me joy today?

1. First thing this morning I saw a post on Facebook that announced a new hair dresser would be working at my daughter's salon, which means that her new business is really doing well. For those of you who don't already know, at the age of 17, I gave my baby daughter up for adoption, so she is was not raised by me. Years back we were united and I'm ecstatically happy for her. I love her so much. Joy!

2. A friend called me tonight to check in and see how I was doing after the loss of our mutual friend this past week. Between that and her husband's 55th high school reunion, she felt as though she was definitely facing her own mortality, but we ended up sharing jokes, laughter and fun. Joy!

3. There is a phenom here where people are painting rocks and hiding them for others to find. Tonight on my walk along the trails in the back of our community, I found two and one is painted to look like a pink ladybug. Joy!

Those are my three I choose to write about tonight. I'm sure there were other moments of joyousness, but those are the three that seem to stand out. I'll continue to find joy in what others may see as mundane, small things, and I will smile at those moments in a friendship that might otherwise pass by unnoticed.

Joy - the ability to appreciate the gift of life in a way I never did before.

And now on to conquer those books!