Hey friends,
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about joy. Not the big, dramatic, confetti kind. The small, quiet kind. The kind you don’t realize you’re missing until it shows up beside you on a beach holding a crushed soda can.
Here’s a story from today, and a question I’m still sitting with:
When Did I Lose It?
I’m not sure when it happened, when the small wonders stopped being enough.
These days, I sit in my van, Oscar, running through mental checklists.
More insulation. A better fan. Some shelves.
Figure out the bed. Maybe add a little plant to make it feel more “home.”
I scroll through maps and travel pages, planning all the places I’ll go once the van is perfect. Once I’m perfect. Once I’ve finally fixed enough things to deserve the kind of peace I’ve been chasing for what feels like forever.
And then from my desk on the beach, I hear laughter.
To my left, a little kid is blowing into a soda can like it’s a Grammy winning instrument.
The noise is terrible.
She is delighted.
Belly laughing. Red faced. Pure joy.
To my right, another kid is burying his cousin in the sand, their giggles echoing louder than the waves.
No phones. No curated content.
Just two kids, one beach, and the kind of laughter I haven’t felt in a long time.
And I sit there, in between them, thinking:
When did I lose that?
When did joy become something I had to earn?
When did I stop letting small things be enough?
I could blame it on growing up.
On stress, grief, mental illness.
On capitalism, trauma, the mess of becoming a person.
(And honestly, yeah… all of those are valid.)
But if I’m honest? I think I just stopped noticing.
I got so wrapped up in fixing my life
that I forgot how to live it.
What If It Was Never Gone?
I used to be that kid. Maybe not with a soda can kazoo, but still.
I used to laugh at dumb things.
Get excited about a cool rock (pretty sure my mother still probably has my box of rocks stored somewhere, sorry mom!) or a song on the radio.
I used to let little moments spark something in me.
Now, I tend to overlook them. I’m so busy building a future that I forget the present has its own kind of beauty.
Its own kind of joy.
The kind that lives in a cheap noise and a kid who can’t stop giggling.
What I’m Learning
I want to find that joy again.
Not in some big, sweeping life change. Although that’s sorta the current trajectory. But,
Just in the everyday.
I want to let the sand stick to my feet and not be annoyed.
I want to laugh when something is stupidly funny, even if no one else gets it.
I want to stop chasing joy like it’s miles ahead of me, when maybe it’s just sitting beside me, waiting to be noticed.
That kid didn’t build a van.
He didn’t meditate or journal or finally heal all his childhood wounds.
He just made a sound with a piece of trash
and let it be enough.
I want that kind of enough.
If this hits something in you, you’re not alone.
Maybe joy isn’t gone.
Maybe we just have to stop, look up, and listen for the kazoo.
’Til next time,
Dylan