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Is Joy Real?

Holding On To Something We Can't Touch

By Teshelle CombsPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Is Joy Real?
Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

Is joy real?

I have a friend who I associate with joy. She is the light in every room. Her voice takes up space, but in a way that is welcome, longed for. I never realize how deeply I miss her until she is near me, and then I feel a budding in my chest. She gives me her joy. At least that’s what it feels like.

This friend told me recently that she feels the joy being sucked out of her. She told me she needs more. And so I began to think of how I could help.

As a human, I would not describe myself as one of the joyful ones. No rooms light up when I walk into them. To test this, I paused my writing and asked a close friend if he would consider me "joyful." His response: laughter. Rather, I would say I bring either calm or intensity. I suppose it depends on how my passions are perceived. I am always wanting people to change, to become themselves, to push and grow. I am not the kind of person one comes to when they seek rest. I am who they come to when they need inspiration. Though I cultivate hope and confidence, I am no joy-bringer.

I used the good old dictionary to find a working definition for “joy.” It is “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.”

And here I find the reason for the strange relationship between joy and myself, for this definition of joy eludes me; I find that good fortune and misfortune both lead to the possession of what I desire. Beauty is derived in equal measure from what I lack and from what I hold firmly in my hands or my heart. I build my future with bricks made of laughter and cement mixed with tears. Both. With this premise, I define joy as a broken heart. I define joy as an empty wallet. By this premise, I do not enjoy joy very often, but I find myself deeply thankful for it.

I decided a year or two ago that I would stop striving to be happy. Happiness is a fleeting thing and I couldn’t continue to be surprised at my instability when chasing it. Instead, I decided to let happiness come to me. To find joy when happiness came and to find joy still when it left. In joy, I began to build myself a deep well. I am finding it is something I can trust.

So what is joy, really? Is it only for people like my friend, who make the world smile? And what do those joy-bringers cling to when their light fades?

I’ll lend my own definition to the creative mix in the hope that it will help. Joy is fullness.

The feeling that follows or precedes a dream fulfilled, a longing satisfied, regardless of whether the marked moment of its perception is painful or pleasing. Whether it is sadness intermingled with happiness that brings us to fullness, we may still find true joy. For we will know we have tasted it all, survived it all, overcome it all. That life was not half lived, but fully created.

We all want this, I believe. It is in our nature. We see it in the path of every bloom, every moon cycle, every stomach, and every human. To be full. To see others become full. If it was not real, this joy, then our wanting it will make it so. We don’t only replicate this fullness, we create it.

And in the shaking of the earth beneath our feet, may we not cling too desperately to the happy bricks we were in the process of laying. For brokenness is not the undoing of joy, but an addend to its summation. Rubble is still something. And in the end, every shaking and every breaking will add to our fullness. And there will be joy.

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About the Creator

Teshelle Combs

Author. Painter. Singer. From childhood days spent in the Virgin Islands to the life she now leads with her husband and two boys in Florida, Teshelle has chosen to put her heart and skill into creating a future that outshines the past.

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