Haunted: Joy

I am having a hard time figuring out how to put into words what has happened to me over the past few days. So I apologize in advance if this is wordy or makes no sense.

Could it be that you just get so sad and so tired of being so sad that your brain just does a complete 180? In an instant you go from worrying about a million different things to just being? Just living? In a split second you are different. The world is different. The world looks different. Do you think that is possible?

I think it is. That's what happened to me today at 12:37pm.

It happened in this way: I was walking between classes. I usually walk down from PSU to the waterfront (about 8 blocks maybe?), then across the Hawthorne Bridge, along the river on the East side (Eastbank Esplenade), back across the Steele Bridge (3 or 4 bridges down, I do live in "BridgeTown" USA!) and then on to one of two routes depending on whether I'm walking 2 or 3 hours. There's this part of Eastbank right before a bridge, I forgot exactly which bridge, where there's a platform and then the walkway slopes downward and then you're right on top of the water. As I was approaching the platform before the downward slope, I had a thought.

(Pause for a second, to add this: So, there's this person who is basically my thinspiration. She's a friend of mine, but not one I've ever mentioned on this blog before. Obviously I don't want to say her name. In fact, I don't even want to use her first initial like I usually do with people on here, so I'll just give her a totally different name and call her "Jane." I'm always wishing I looked like Jane. Constantly.)

The thought I had was, "in order to look like Jane, I need to live like Jane!" Jane is a very joyful person. And then I looked around me. It was sunny! When did that happen?? It's never ever EVER sunny in Portland in springtime, at least not for more than a minute at a time, until about halfway through May! And I realized the sun had been out the entire time I'd been walking! In fact, I was almost too warm in my purple Livestrong hoodie. I almost needed to take off my hoodie! IN APRIL! This was getting a bit out of hand!

An overwhelming desire to feel joy flooded through my body from my heart all the way out to my fingers and toes. Kind of like an orgasm, only different. LOL! My eyes widened behind my aviator sunglasses. I actually stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, just before the platform.

I felt the need to be happy. To see things through "happy glasses." My aviators could be "happy glasses," could they not? All of a sudden, the world looked really different. And I don't mean it just looked amber-tinted because of my sunglasses.

My legs! I can walk!
My eyes! I can see!
My ears! I can hear!
My stomach can digest dairy!
My blood can hold onto sugar!
My hair can grow long!
My eyes do not need glasses!
My 10 fingers all work!
I can dance!
I can run!
I can learn!
I AM ALIVE!!!!

All these thoughts burst through my brain one after the other. The ache in my shoulder from carrying my messenger bag seemed to ease. In an instant I knew I needed to record this.

I don't have my journal on me at the moment, but this is what I did: I stopped walking which is actually very monumental. I never do that. I ran to the platform and sat down on a bench in the sunshine. I pulled my journal (a black spiral notebook) out of my bag, got a pen and wrote. The time on the entry was 12:41pm. It was 12:37 when I first had those thoughts. I wrote about how I wanted to look, feel, be like Jane. I wrote, "so I'm fat - ok, I want to experience the joy in getting thinner!"

Walking. Yoga. Hot yoga. Zumba. Eating good food. Eating. Those are the things I want to do and get joy from. I want to be wild, spontaneous, free and happy. Not because Jane is like that. Because I want to be like that.

At that moment, I made up my mind that this Spring and Summer are going to be amazing. I actually really hate Spring. It's my very, very least favorite time of year. But hey, I thought, I'm more than halfway through April now! May will come. Then June. Eventually Oregon will get a summer season. Someday! Until then I will deal with the rain. But for now, it is sunny!

I put away my journal and kept walking. At 1:01pm I decided I'd better start heading back in the direction of campus. But then I had another thought. I want to feel joy. I knew I would not feel joy sitting in a classroom for 2 hours. I knew it was also wrong to skip class. I knew I'd feel a little guilty, probably, about skipping class.

So I said out loud to myself, "what do I really want to do? What will make me feel joy right now? I am so tired of being sad." The answer that came into my mind was a whisper from my heart. Go home, it told me. Take your dog to the dog park. You can feel joy today. In a heartbeat I grabbed my phone. "Mom," I said, when she answered, "are you busy?"

We picked up my dog, Abby, and took her to the dog park. She played for 35 straight minutes with 2 Great Danes, several labs, 2 Pitbulls, a Boston, a Beagle, an English Bulldog and many more. My little piglet. When she ran by me and glanced up, her big brown eyes sparkling, her tongue out and lips pulled back in a happy doggie grin, I felt her joy inside of me. I felt joy by seeing her joy. When Abby was all tuckered out, we loaded her up in the car, all hot and drooly. We drove through Dutch Bros and got coffees and went home.

As for skipping class? I didn't feel guilty at all.