Joy

I found out recently that a few years back, someone asked Oprah Winfrey this question: "When was the last time you experienced joy?" At the time, I think she was jogging with one of her trainers. In fact, it may even have been the trainer who asked her this question. Anyway, she thought about it, and after thinking on it for awhile realized that the last time she had truly experienced joy had been 7 years before. It had been while she was filming the movie The Color Purple, and she had experienced great joy while working on the project. It made her (and me!) sad to think that someone so rich and famous and successful had gone 7 years without experiencing true joy!!! So it was at that moment that she decided to move her talk show away from being chatty-chatty and began the book club and started covering more meaningful topics on her show. As we all know, Oprah has done a lot since then to help the world.

So I started thinking on this same question, when the last time I experienced joy was. And I'm not exactly sure what they mean by "true joy", but I have been lucky enough to have enjoyed a lot of experiences that were purely joyful. But I guess the last time would maybe have to be when S and I first met and we had such fun together and were together all the time, as much as possible. So much so that he would come to work with me on Sundays (back when I had to work the occasional Sunday) and tag along with me everywhere and I loved every minute of it! It was so nice--and such a change--to be loved by someone who needed me like the air he breathed and spent his every waking hour adoring me the way I deserved to be adored! Of course I ended up marrying the guy! But anyway, the summer of '05 was our salad days. Lots of Icees and movies and sushi and coconut rum and friends and fun!

But since then, I've had a lot of "little joys", and I'll be damned if those don't get to count. Even this week, depressing as times have been lately! For example, it's just been me and Bob here at work since everyone else is gone, and I've savored coming in late, taking long lunches, sneaking out early, listening to Internet radio loud, etc. Little joys there. And at Job #2 the other night, now that we're down a shelver I offered to help my friend sort a cart of teen books and I really, really enjoyed that! I love getting my hands on books and feeling like I'm helping get books into the hands of others. A little joy there! And today I got invited to lunch with 2 good friends I really needed to catch up with. Great joy!

But the main lesson of the Oprah story was that people who give of their time and/or money are statistically and undeniably happier people. The Oprah story was peripheral to a tithing lesson I received. (Tithing meaning just giving regularly a percentage of your time and/or money.) So I definitely count as a tither in my work with the Sheriff's dept. And that is truly why I joined up with them, to help others and fight crime, in that order! Contrary to what it seems, I do not get sadistic pleasure in handing out tickets and towing cars. It just seems like that's all I see out there on the streets! But every now and then I do truly get to help someone, either by making them feel better, or safer, or giving them information, or whatever. I feel like I'm doing my part, however small, and that does, in return, make me feel good even if it's just for a short while.