Finding My Joy

I have been a little absent of late.  Don't know if any of you missed me or not.  But I've missed you.

The last year and half have been a struggle for me, on a lot of levels. 

Personal losses and deaths seemed to be a far too regular occurrence for a while.  Stresses at work were taking a toll on what time I had open.  Busy season stretched on endlessly for months as our clients all seemed to be struggling with the same kind of molasses that was holding everyone back.  Work trickled in late and then had to be flooded out in record time.  Elections, at all levels; local, state, and federal, were, and still are, going on and the campaigning was so negative.  And in a small town it always involves someone you know.  So my heart was hurting for a while.  I just seemed to be wrapped in a pall of gloom.

I had plenty of topics about which to write.  I would come home and start a post based on something I'd seen or heard.  And I keep a handwritten notebook of phrases I want to use that pop into my head.

But I wouldn't finish them. 

What I found, is that they were all too negative.  It seemed like every subject about which I was going to expound was so dark and dreary and negative.

So I made the conscious decision to not give those negative thoughts and words "life".  And that is exactly what I would have been doing if I had ever hit that Publish button.  My words would then be out in the open for everyone to see, and it was not a side of me that I wanted to put out there.  I just couldn't let them take on a life of their own.

We all have negative thoughts.  We all have better days than others.  I wasn't trying to hide anything or pretend to be something I'm not.  But I can usually find something good to say to balance out the ugliness I see in the world.

But I was seeing myself at a point where those balacing words just weren't coming.

I had lost a lot of joy in my life and was merely dealing with getting up and getting through each day.

But I have been on a hunt.  Much like an Easter egg hunt I have been trying to find my Joy.  One of my biggest joys is sitting at this computer and writing.  So I am working on it - again.

I decided to keep all those topics that I had listed  -  and you will see them.  But they will be balanced now.  Because what I wanted to say and what I was seeing in the world needed to be discussed.  But they are tempered now.  Because all in the world is not bad.  It's all in your perspective and how you allow yourself to process the information.

So, ready or not, here I come!