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Joy

 


Joy  (creative writing)

This is Joy.

Sixteen months ago she was this tiny, tiny just born thing, and now she is Joy. The very meaning of joy.

The first time I held her I choked literally and metaphorically.

To now !

She makes you laugh. She's funny, she's clever, she's always talking. She just goes about doing her thing, popping the remote control in the bin or chucking it in the washing machine, carrying on with complete confidence as though everything she's doing makes perfect sense.

She sweetly blows on her own dinner (My choking fear) . She feeds her self independently. She says, "Whatever you say, whatever you say," then slips back into baby talk before launching into a full conversation. Half the time I have no idea what she's saying, yet somehow we understand each other. We chat away. We converse. We lament. Constantly.

And she is joy.

But sixteen months ago, the day she was born was also the day of my first therapy session.

My childhood PTSD had already started pushing its way out of the box. It first burst out when my grandson was born poorly. Everything I'd spent years keeping packed away, everything I'd tried not to look at, suddenly spilled out.

Before Joy was born, I tried to put the lid back on that box. I really did. I wanted it shut. I wanted everything tidied away and under control.

But I knew I couldn't, it wouldn't and I had doubt for the 1st time ever my caring ability.

So when Joy arrived, therapy arrived too.

One tiny girl came into the world full of laughter, chatter and mischief, while I was beginning the slow work of unpacking a lifetime of things that had finally stopped me in my tracks.

Joy knew nothing of any of that, of course.

She simply arrived and got on with being Joy.

Sixteen months later, she is still teaching me what joy looks like. It looks like finding the remote control in unexpected places. It looks like endless conversations conducted in a language that part clarity and the rest rolling sounds.  

It looks like laughter.

It looks like lightness.

It looks like her.

And somehow, while I've been learning how to carry the weight of the past, she's been showing me how to make room for joy alongside it, I do not need to be anything more than present.


Foot note 

My watch 0440




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