The past. The past few years? The past 10? The past forever? Just the past. All of it, none of it, everything right now: it’s brought me here.

And I am so blessed. Not like, count your blessings and be thankful!, more like, realizing what this is. This life, this past, this now. Blessed.

A few months ago I had a small AHA! Moment where I wrote on my white board “What if my purpose is just to be JOYFUL?” and then I wrote about here, in hiding, off an on. I just asked myself that question over and over again. I wrote about in my journal and poetry came from that place and all these things happened because I asked myself what if?

But not because I asked myself, more because I noticed. What if my purpose is just to be JOYFUL? I can be grumpy, I do victimized pretty damn well, I can do confused, hurt, angry, bitter, unloved, abandoned, and bitch like it’s my middle name. I can do aloof, and Who Care’s? I can do jealous and catty, gossip hat and greedy. I can do it all.

But what if I could do Joy? And why wasn’t I? Why aren’t I?

What if my purpose is just to be JOYFUL?

I like that question: for a while there it scared me. I didn’t like looking at it, I wondered why I had asked it. And now, I don’t so much know, but I know. It’s not what if, it is. There isn’t a maybe in there. It’s just reality. So I can take whatever comes my way, this I already know, and I can sit with it. Deal with it. I can be right there, in it’s face and sweating, and I always get to walk away joyful.

Because that is what I do. It’s who I am. It’s what I’m learning where my strength is. In joy. And being joyful.

And, yeah, that makes me thankful. Because life isn’t as hard as I’d like to make it out to be. It’s not as damaged and unloving. It won’t always leave me. It’s not intended to disappoint.

I get to be joyful.

Look at me, I already am.