If happiness contributes to health, than joy is its fountain of youth. Joy is my heart elated, when I feel I could live in a moment forever. I learned joy from my mother who used the word often in relation to her family. If I’m not experiencing joy in my life, something needs to change. Joy is a special kind of happiness, found in certain activities with certain people.
In my twenties, being a community organizer brought me joy. I lived and breathed activism, hardly made any money, and felt as if I could die tomorrow a happy man.
In the late nineties, doing designer drugs in clubs with my friends brought me joy. Dancing in a trance while my mind exploded in thought and color, life had never felt so tactile and meditative.
Now I’m forty and I like that. What brings me joy is cuddling with my husband, Rob (at right in above picture), or walking our fifteen year old pup, Boo, or toiling as a writer, spending all afternoon with a complicated feeling and attempting to translate it into words.
-- Tony Valenzuela
Los Angeles
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Lovely post
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