The Forgotten Days of Joy-filled Singlehood

The Forgotten Days of Joy-filled Singlehood

I was looking at old pictures a few weeks ago, pictures of when I was still single and living in Manila. It feels like a lifetime ago. And the person then seems so different from the person now. Back then, I was enjoying life and ready to take on challenges. I had gone rappelling and was even considering sky diving. Sky diving is still one of the things I'd like to be able to experience though. Now, it seems like I've gotten "boring". I guess that's what happens when you marry and then have kids. Life can fall into a routine. I know family life does not have to be boring but ... I don't know, I wish I had a more fun lifestyle.

Life, recently, has just felt kinda heavy and sullen punctuated with the occasional burst of lightness. God has been speaking to me in prayer about my current state. I have got to bring back joy into my life. Not happiness, but joy. Happiness is the emotional state that is usually a result of pleasant circumstances around you. Joy is the inner state, a grace from God that allows you to be joyful despite setbacks and disappointments around you. I need to find that joy. I want to rediscover that joy.

Have you seen the movie, UP? You know how the wife had a scrapbook to chronicle their adventures, the places they'd been, etc.? When the wife died, the husband felt bad that he was not able to give his wife the adventures they had been wanting. Towards the end of the movie, he finally opened the scrapbook and turned the pages and saw within pictures of the two of them enjoying life. He realized they had an adventure. Maybe not what he originally envisioned - no trekking through the Amazon or getting that motorcycle jack and riding through the Sahara - but their whole life together was the adventure.

That brought tears to my eyes. I want that. I want to be able to see that my life is an adventure. And I don't want to live it alone. I know I am not alone physically. I have my family and everyone else around me. But sometimes I feel isolated. Amid the craziness that is my home, I feel like I'm gliding through in my bubble and just helplessly alone. I could just be imagining this. This could probably be hormones. I don't know. What I know is that I need to have joy back in my life.