For me JOY is a choice I have to make daily.

(Time lapse of 30 minutes.)

I wanted to write about not postponing joy in life. I had so much to say, scriptures to give encouragement, but as soon as I sat down to type, it was gone and negativity set in. My fingers just wanted to type all the things that are bogging me down this past month, but what good would that do?

Truthfully, for the past month I haven’t done a good job of choosing joy. There have been moments of pure joy, but overall, negativity seems to be all around us and it is so easy to get sucked into other people’s drama that becomes your own. To get trapped. That too is a choice. A choice I absolutely dislike when people around me make it, yet, in the past month I have not had the energy to keep it at bay. When the drama of life (totally not related to grief) drags you down, it is sometimes easier to stay down than find the energy to get up again and find the light. Yet, the darkness down here isn’t all that fun either.

They say that this journey will get easier. Almost nine months into it, I can say that it is the absolute hardest yet…not even the grief, but the weight of everyday life leaving nothing left for the grief process. I just want the time to process things and work through them. How does one find and take that time?
I look at the calendar for the remainder of October and it is blissfully empty. Anything written on it, I have chosen to say yes to.  I think to myself, what do we want to do in the next months until Christmas? The answer? Nothing. I don’t want to fill the calendar with more busy, busy, busy. I want to finally spend some time doing the things I love. It’s been too long. Too much of ‘get through the day’.

I am done with negativity. I am done with busy schedules. I am done with obligations. I am not postponing joy any longer.

Creativity fills me with joy and life is breathed back into these dry bones of mine. I’ve finally taken some time to get creative and make things pretty around here: