By This is the most difficult season of my life. Every day, I have to make decisions and choices not only for myself, but for my parents as well. Many of these decisions I never envisioned I would have to make, but here I am doing my best to make my parents and myself proud daily. Do I want to do any of this? The answer is a resounding no. However, I am doing it anyway.
What I struggle with every day, without fail, is to find the joy in these circumstances. Do I struggle all day every day? No. However, most days I do struggle at some point to count it joy and to find joy. It is the honest truth. How do I find joy when, in all honesty sometimes, I would rather just pull the covers up over my head and not manage all my responsibilities right now.
Every day, joy starts with Coco. For those of you who do not know: Coco is my dog. She is 9.5 pounds of love. Waking up with her next to me brings me joy every morning. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt, the minute I open my eyes she is going to be happy to see me and ready to cuddle and love me to start our day. Coco’s unconditional love and trust in me to take care of her and love her is undoubtably a source of joy for me every morning and throughout my day every day.
Another source of joy for me daily is knowing that I am doing what my dad wants me to do to the best of my ability. He wants me to take care of myself in every capacity that it’s possible to do so. I talk to him every day so he knows that I am doing exactly what he wants. Do I get taking care of myself right all the time?Absolutely not. It can be an exhausting endeavor. Trying again tomorrow when I get it wrong brings me joy as well because I know that is what dad wants me to do as well. He wants me to be better than he. I am determined to do just that in terms of my health and well-being.
Helping others helps me to count it joy as well. I am an Overthinker. To be able to get out of my overthinking tendencies by helping others whenever and wherever I can reminds me, there is always someone facing more difficult circumstances than I, and when I encounter someone who is, I should do my best to help them. Sometimes, that help looks like just smiling at them when out and about. It also looks like lending a helping hand where I can to both strangers and everybody I love alike.
Crossing tasks to-do list brings me satisfaction and joy because each time I do something I did not think it was possible for me to do, or possible for me to do well: I feel braver and more confident in myself. I am very proud of myself for how I am handling this season of my life and my circumstances currently. Not only that, but I know everybody who loves me is proud of me as well. Having them be proud of me, brings me immense satisfaction and joy as well.
I do not write this blog post for any of you to feel sorry for me. I want to write it as a way to to have a record of what I am capable of in very difficult times. I know that after this season of my life settles down, I will have more difficult seasons ahead. If I can remind myself of how I handled this difficult season by doing my best to count as much joy as possible then I will know how to better deal with difficult seasons from here on out. I also wanted to write it for all of you, so that you could see that I do struggle, and I am not always positive and happy. Writing this was a way for me to be real and transparent with all of you instead of pretending my difficult season does not exist. If I were to pretend that: my content would be performative in nature and not my actual story, which I do not want. Creating content in that way does not serve anyone well including me.

