Best. Birthday. Ever.: Forcing Joy
The twins’ birthday is coming up and it’s going to be a tough one. There won’t be a big party like they want. There won’t be a fun day out at the zoo, or a trip to the movie theater. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to go to a park, where they won’t be able to go on the playground and we’ll all wear masks and it will all be so different that maybe we just shouldn’t go at all.
Since I’m me, I’m working overtime to make this the Best! Birthday! Ever! We’re throwing a carnival. Forrest is making a Plinko board. I’ve ordered tickets and designed a scavenger hunt so they can find coins to buy those tickets and yes, maybe it will be me running all 5 carnival games and big sister organizing the relay races but we’re going to make it amazing!
Can you see the crazy eyes and strained smile on my face? Because here’s the rub. No matter what we do, this birthday will feel sad. It will feel like so much fun but also, “I wish so-and-so could be here with me.” Or, “I wish I got to have the whole class sing to me, not on zoom but in real life. And remember, Mom? I was going to hand out funny erasers to everyone in my class at the end of the day?”
Yeah, I remember. The worst part about choosing joy is that I can’t choose it for someone else, no matter how much I want to. Because besides being impossible, it’s cruel. Choosing joy for someone else is just shaming them into expressing only the emotions that I want to see. And if I want those girls to be wholehearted around me, allowed to be vulnerable and feel appreciated, I need to accept that the complexity of choosing joy means acknowledging pain.
Not just in kids, either. Our communities work best when we offer opportunities for joy but allow each person to decide whether or not to partake. Sometimes people will be infuriatingly unwilling to just have fun, damnit! But respecting boundaries means they get to make the choices that are working for them. Sometimes what brings me joy is the exact thing that brings another person pain.
A friend of mine miscarried shortly after the twins were born. I asked her if I could help and she said, “Can I hold a baby? All I want is to hold a baby.” A few years later, I miscarried myself and there was nothing I wanted less than to hold someone else’s baby. Choosing joy for her was so, so different than choosing joy for me. Both were right. But if I had forced my conception of joy on her, her empty arms would have ached. And if she had forced hers on me, my tender heart would have broken. You can’t choose someone else’s joy. Just your own.
How have you tried to force joy in the past? How has choosing joy surprised you?
