Grateful for the Joy Returning

Sometimes healing isn't dramatic.  Sometimes you simply notice you're smiling. And that's enough.  Visit www.ThankU.io for the full story.  #ThankU.io #Grateful #SantaCruzMountains

Grateful moments don't always announce themselves. Sometimes they arrive quietly. I looked up from my painting table and realized I wasn't simply creating something beautiful. I was smiling again.

A few days ago I was sitting at my painting table, working on one of my little angels. I wasn't thinking about anything profound. I was simply enjoying the colors, the quiet, and the rhythm of the brush. Then I happened to look up and caught myself smiling. It wasn't a smile I was trying to create. It was simply there. In that moment I felt deeply grateful, because I realized something had changed. After a Spring season that had left my heart tired, joy had quietly found its way back.

That realization sent me looking through old photographs. I found one from sixth grade: three Camp Fire Girls standing proudly with sleeping bags, a frying pan, and everything we thought we'd need for an overnight adventure. We were headed to Searsville Lake, where we hiked around the shoreline looking for clay, swam in water that seemed perfectly wonderful at the time, and learned delightfully ridiculous camp songs that have somehow stayed with me for decades.  We sat around the fire on our “sit-upons” we had sewn the week before, completely relishing our adventure!   

Looking at that picture, I wasn't remembering the details as much as I was remembering the girl in the middle.

She had no idea what life would bring. She had no idea she was growing up in Palo Alto just as apricot orchards were giving way to what would become Silicon Valley.  She didn't know she would spend fifty years in high tech, travel the world, build a marketing company, become a wife, a mother, and a grandmother, or someday wake up deaf in one ear with the world a high-pitched roar all around her. She didn't know about heartbreaks, disappointments, unexpected turns, or the many times life would ask her to begin again. She simply kept saying yes. Yes to camp. Yes to learning the guitar. Yes to becoming a junior counselor. Yes to friendships. Yes to new jobs. Yes to opportunities that were sometimes exciting and sometimes terrifying.

She wasn't trying to build a remarkable life. She was simply curious enough to say yes to the next adventure.

As I thought about it, I realized that many of the happiest chapters of my life began exactly that way. I showed up. I said yes. Then I discovered something I never could have planned.

The same thing is true today.

Yesterday ,I took Ghost for a hike so I could photograph him for this week's posts. That proved harder than expected. Ghost weighs all of eight pounds, but he believes it is his personal responsibility to protect me from every dog on the trail. I often laugh and tell people, "I'll pick him up. He's eight pounds of fury."

Trying to photograph an energetic little dog who insists on running back to check on me was almost impossible. Every time I asked him to stay, he hurried back to make sure I was all right. Eventually I clipped his leash to a fallen log just long enough to capture a few photographs.

Later, looking at one of those pictures, I noticed something I hadn't seen while taking it. Ghost wasn't looking at me. He was looking down the trail, completely focused on whatever might be around the next bend.

It struck me that life has often felt that way.

We don't usually know where the trail is leading. We don't get a map. We don't get guarantees. Most of the time, we simply take the next step and trust that we'll discover what we need along the way.

Looking back, I can see that joy has rarely arrived because I chased it. More often, it appeared while I was busy living. It came through unexpected friendships, surprising opportunities, meaningful work, quiet mornings, mountain trails, and conversations that opened a new way of seeing.

Joy wasn't waiting at the finish line.

It was scattered all along the path.

Today, I find myself smiling again. Not because every problem has disappeared, but because I remember something the little Camp Fire Girl already knew.

Life is an invitation.

Show up.

Say yes.

See what happens.