If you’ve ever had your heart curb stomped in front of you by someone you once loved, then you know how easy it is to feel like joy has packed its bags and left the building. The days seem to be unbearably heavier, the nights heinously longer, and honestly…it feels as though happiness is hiding its pretty little face under a rock somewhere. But what if I told you that joy is still out there, just maybe in the places you never thought to look?
In the days…damn…even weeks after my breakup, I was pretty much a zombie that responded with “aghhh” to everything as I moped around. I’d scroll my life away through social media, only to feel like everyone was having the time of their lives while I was stuck in the heartbreak hotel of hell. Then one day, something happened: I finally found myself laughing (while I sobbed…some would say I’m manic, but HEY! A win is a win). I would laugh at the most random thing- a girl on TikTok saying “The girl you’re crying over isn’t a high prize…she’s literally a bitch from Manhattan.” It was like a flip of a switch in my twenty something brain…am I really going to cry over a woman from Virginia who treated me like I was nothing? (The answer is hell no I wasn’t.) This was the first time I had laughed in what felt like weeks, and in that moment, I realized something-joy doesn’t disappear just because we are hurting.
Accurate representation of me :’)
Sometimes, it sneaks up on us in the simplest ways: in the first sip of coffee on a crisp morning, having a night out with close friends, in a song that hits all the right emotional chords, or even in the victory of getting out of bed when all you want to do is pull the covers over your head and become a human burrito. Little by little, these moments add up.
I’ve started looking for joy, not in big, life-altering moments, but in the everyday things. Like the way the sun’s rays warm my skin, the way the wind blows through my hair, how my best friend and I go on random late-night drives and chase the moon, or the way my dogs’ tails wag like they haven’t seen me in years when I come home (even if I’ve only been gone for five minutes). I’ve come to realize that finding joy after heartbreak isn’t about waiting for some grand moment where everything suddenly feels okay. It’s about allowing yourself to feel the small bursts of happiness in between the aching pain and trauma.
Sure, the sadness and hurt are still there. Some days it’s like a lingering fog that’s hard to shake. But as night falls and morning rises, I’m learning that it is okay to hold space for both- sadness and joy can exist together, and sometimes, that’s the most healing thing of all. So, my advice is to just…feel because allowing ourselves to feel everything can be a step in feeling whole.