joy is not meant to be a crumb!
I had a two-month situationship and all I got was this napkin telling me to feel JOY
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Joy is not meant to be a crumb!
The word “joy” has tumbled around my head like a rolling stone for the past three months. I never really thought about it too much aside from being a name or a synonym for “happy.” It all started with a napkin that felt somewhat like kismet but turned out to be nothing at all. On the first date, after acquiring a ballpoint pen, he spontaneously came up with an activity. We’d each write down a word that was important to us on the napkin and then take turns trying to interpret the personal significance. I wrote compassion. He wrote joy. The reasons why we chose these words are not hard to imagine.
When I got home, he texted me to look in my purse. Inside was his napkin — joy — with a note he wrote while I was in the bathroom. It says something along the lines of “You’re sweet and compassionate, I had a great time with you tonight, etc.” The part that’s seared into my mind is “Hope you find joy in all you do.” I also can clearly picture the little smiley face at the very end of the message. In the beginning, that face was optimistic, reassuring. At the end, it was absolutely taunting. I think I’m generally good at noticing signs. It’s the deciphering between good and bad that’s difficult. I’m not always willing to accept the truth.
After I first read the note, I was touched. Both my tear ducts and my heart swelled a little, appreciating the unexpected gesture. No one has ever done something like that for me. I felt seen and hopeful. I put the napkin in my desk drawer, unsure of the best place to keep it. As the weeks added up, I used that napkin to convince myself that everything between us was okay. In my moments of doubt and anxiety about where the relationship was going, I’d go into the drawer to grab something and see the napkin, a physical reminder to trust the process. But resentment started to creep in towards “joy,” written in all caps, and the smirking little face that was trying to trick me. I glared down at the paper square, shutting the drawer to return it to darkness.
When we ended things, my mind desperately tried to make sense of all his conflicting gestures, actions, and words. I went on a twoish-month situationship and all I got was this napkin and a bunch of invisible rage. I wanted to burn it. Yes, let’s set JOY on fire in a petty attempt to control the narrative. To destroy the narrative. The word and his attachment to it pissed me off. “I just want everyone to be happy,” he said multiple times when talking about his family, his coworkers, people in his life. What about me? Does it bother him to know he’s made me unhappy? Does he even know or care?
Naturally, I began to notice joy as it popped up in my life in different contexts.
I read Normal People by Sally Rooney and and was a bystander in Marianne and Connell’s impossible relationship. These two sentences and their unexpected poetry at the very end surprised me:
Connell went home that night and read over some notes he had been making for a new story, and he felt the old beat of pleasure inside his body, like watching a perfect goal, like the rustling movement of light through the leaves, a phrase of music from the window of a passing car. Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.
Soon after, my Pinterest page showed me Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver, and it lingered in the back of my mind for days.
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give into it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much more can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant love begins.* Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
*Grrrr
One night, I had the idea to tape the napkin in my sketchbook. Above it, I wrote: PUTTING THIS HERE LIKE A MINI ART INSTALL SO I DON’T START A HOUSE FIRE. Below it, I wrote a slightly abridged version of Don’t Hesitate. I spaced out the last three words, “be a crumb,” for visual emphasis.
More recently, I found the poem Joy Chose You by Donna Ashworth, reading it after an obligatory eye roll.
Joy does not arrive with fanfare
On a red carpet strewn
With the flowers of a perfect life
Joy sneaks in
As you pour a cup of coffee
Watching the sun
Hit your favorite tree
Just right
And you usher joy away
Because you are not ready for her
Your house is not as it should be
For such a distinguished guest
But joy, you see
Cares for nothing in your messy home
Or your bank balance
Of your waistline
Joy is supposed to slither though
The cracks of your imperfect life
That’s how joy works
You cannot truly invite her
You can only be ready
When she appears
And hug her with meaning
Because in this very moment
Joy chose you.
And so I’m reclaiming joy. I cannot experience it in a twisted, backwards way just because I’m jaded. And beyond the turmoil of dating, I can’t fight joy because there’s a voice inside me that says I don’t deserve it. Despite everything, joy is not meant to be a crumb. Joy slithers through the cracks of my imperfect life, whether I like it or not. Joy isn’t here to punish me or even to teach me a lesson (although I suppose you can argue it’s got its own curriculum). It’s here to make moments better and brighter, separate from all the other moments and their leading emotions. It’s here to be felt or at the very least acknowledged. Joy deserves compassion. I see now that joy is not the same as happiness; there’s something more to it. It’s happiness with hope.
who wrote this?
This is edish of culture vulture was a guest post by Emma Kumagawa who writes the The Warm Glow.
Emma is an LA-based creative who uses the internet and art to better understand the human experience.
Find all her other stuff here!
want to be published in culture vulture?
if you’re a pop culture/ internet writer and you feel like you’ve got something to say that fits with our culture vulture vibe, send me a draft to luce@shityoushouldcareabout.com and I’ll see what I can do 𓆩♡𓆪
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i adored this
This piece reeled me in and inspired me on a day that has started out with horrible news. Thank you Emma for your lovely words. I will be sharing this for sure Xx