Daily Joy

I bought some shoes off of Etsy the other day. They’re silly shoes. Ridiculous, even. They’re combat boot/Doc Marten shaped and are printed with books and flowers all over them. I think they’re fantastic. Ordering them gave me a big burst of daily joy. Trying them on did, too. They don’t really match anything I own, since the print is so busy it interferes with all the busy print on my clothing.

I wear them anyway.

This is because I love ridiculous things. I love things with personality that aren’t the same as what everyone else is sporting.

For decades, I hated getting dressed. I never knew how to dress myself. My body is not shaped like the people who model clothes in catalogues. I’m very curvy. There’s a double digit number in the difference between my belly and my hips. My ta-tas could feed a village during a famine and prevent me from wearing anything with buttons. My shoulders are as broad as an NFL linebacker’s, and my feet are so big that my six-foot-tall husband and I wear the same shoe size. It’s hard for me to find clothes that fit and hard for me to wear what the cool kids are wearing.

For a long time, I sweated it. But then I got old and quit caring what other people think. I leaned into my own eccentricities. I almost always wear dresses because they don’t require a fitted waist. Yesterday, I wore a dress that is super comfortable, and I think the print is very pretty. However, when I wear it, I look like an over-stuffed chintz love seat.  And I. Don’t. Care. I like being comfortable, and I like looking down at my lap and seeing all the swirling flowers in pretty colors.

A few months ago I was shopping with some friends. We went into a jewelry shop just to browse. I found a ring there. It had gold flowers with bejeweled centers, and a small gold lizard with teensy red sapphire scales along its back. I fell in love with it. It was like nothing I’d ever seen. It wasn’t cheap, but I had the money. Should I or shouldn’t I? One of my friends smiled at me: well, she said, I wouldn’t wear it, but if you like it….Another said that she thought it was beautiful and I should do what made me happy. So I bought it. I wear it almost every day, named the lizard “Mossy”, and every time I see it I get a little dopamine shot because I did something nice for myself that makes me happy just because I could.

It’s important to experience daily joy. Joy isn’t the same as bliss, it isn’t the same as a belly laugh or soaring happiness. It’s winning an extra lollipop hammer in Candy Crush. It’s enjoying the sparkles in your nail polish. It’s drinking the good coffee instead of the cheap, industrial-grade stuff.

What gives me joy might make you cringe. In fact, I suspect it probably will. Most professional grownups over fifty don’t wear dresses printed all over with typewriter keys paired with acid yellow Doc Martens. But I do, because the silliness of it all makes me smile, and smiles can be hard to come by some days.

Here’s the thing: if it makes you happy and it doesn’t harm anyone else, go for it. If other people think it’s silly, well, I agree. It is. And isn’t that glorious?

Buy my book, Devil’s Defense, or the audiobook, order the sequel, Devil’s Hand, and/or find me on Substack.