Crazy Joy

Crazy Joy Plot Summary

Introduction

I remember the day I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, staring at my reflection with tears streaming down my face. "I should be happy," I whispered to myself. On paper, everything looked perfect – a loving family, a fulfilling career, good health. Yet something was missing. That elusive feeling of joy seemed just beyond my grasp, like trying to catch sunlight in my hands. The harder I tried to find happiness, the more it seemed to slip away. I was chasing a moving target, exhausting myself in pursuit of something I couldn't quite define. Perhaps you've felt this way too. Our society has conditioned us to believe that joy comes from achievement, acquisition, or arriving at some future destination. We tell ourselves, "I'll be happy when..." – when I get that promotion, when I lose twenty pounds, when my children are successful, when I can finally afford that house. But what if joy isn't found at the end of these pursuits? What if it's actually found in the messy middle, in the journey itself? Through personal stories and profound insights, we'll discover that joy isn't simply a fleeting emotion dependent on perfect circumstances. It's a force, a choice, and a way of being that can transform our experience of life, even amid its challenges and imperfections. Together, we'll learn to shift our focus from the destination to the journey, finding meaning in moments both ordinary and extraordinary.

Chapter 1: The Nature of Joy: More Than Just Happiness

When I was a little girl, I spent countless afternoons collecting tiny purple flowers that grew wild in my neighborhood. I'd gather them carefully into small bouquets to present to my mother when I arrived home. "How beautiful!" she would exclaim each time, accepting my offering with genuine delight. These flowers were my treasure, my way of showing love. Then one day at school, I learned something devastating – my precious blooms weren't flowers at all. They were weeds. Specifically, they were called henbit, a common garden nuisance. I came home that day empty-handed, dejected. When my mother asked about my missing bouquet, I explained what I'd learned. "They're just weeds, Mom. Not even real flowers." But rather than agreeing, my mother sat me down for an impromptu botany lesson. Flowers, she explained, are finicky things requiring specific conditions to thrive. But weeds like my little henbit are resilient warriors, surviving in sidewalk cracks, acidic soil, and places where water is scarce. While beautiful irises need constant tending, my purple "Fraggle Rock Flowers" (as I called them) bloomed of their own accord. They were tiny mascots of persistence, blooming wherever they were planted. And suddenly, I understood something profound about joy. Happiness is like those beautiful irises – dependent on perfect conditions. Not enough attention from your spouse and happiness wilts. Bad day at work, and happiness drops its petals. But joy has that weed-like constitution – it blooms wherever it's planted, taking rain as it comes, and flourishing in situations that would destroy more delicate emotions. Joy doesn't always make logical sense. Sometimes we confuse its hardy blooms with the more temperamental flowers of happiness. But when we understand what joy can endure compared to its flightier sister, we begin to grasp its deeper meaning. Joy has that wild weed constitution. It springs up in the cracks of chaos, surviving conditions that would kill a hothouse flower. It's found not in neat garden rows but in the crevices, the unexpected places, the challenging terrain of life. There's nothing wrong with gathering happiness whenever we can – happiness is bright and beautiful. But what if we sought a different kind of harvest? One that springs up in the cracks and crevices of life, one that persists when conditions aren't perfect. What you and I are going to find is this feisty little thing called joy – not dependent on circumstances, but flourishing despite them. Like flowers, but a little more wild.

Chapter 2: Forces of Light: Newton's Laws and Emotional Balance

I have a confession: I have a crush on Sir Isaac Newton. Yes, that 17th-century physicist with the flowing white wig. It's not just his revolutionary work on gravity and motion laws, or the fact that he developed calculus (though I failed Math 098). There's something about a man in a waistcoat and breeches that awakens something in me. But beyond his brilliance and potential baking abilities (I imagine he made exquisite omelets), there's a deeper reason for my fixation. It has everything to do with forces, light, and an unexpected lesson in joy. My first heartbreak came in sixth grade when Jamie, the skater boy who rescued me from a trash can (long story involving Power Rangers), kissed me at the movies then promptly ignored me after winter break. When I discovered he'd moved on to Lacy – one of the very girls who'd pushed me into that trash can – I was devastated. Standing in the school bathroom, trying to cool my tear-stained cheeks, I felt something shift inside me. Anger rose up, powerful and oddly comforting. "I. Hate. Jamie. Pratt," I declared, and surprisingly, it felt better than sadness. In that moment, I remembered what we'd learned in science about Newton's laws: forces come in pairs. I'd found a force that could fight away sadness. I'd burn my feelings for Jamie to the ground and salt the scorched earth. I would squash the feelings I had for him with a force that was equal and opposite. Years later in college, after another heartbreak left me crying in a frat house bathroom, I employed the same strategy. "I hate Tyler!" I declared, embracing anger as my superpower. But something unexpected happened when Tyler called me months later to apologize. As he spoke those words of genuine remorse, I felt the anger melt away. I didn't need to hate him anymore, and that was a relief. The anger I had carried was as harmful as the breakup itself. "I forgive you," I said, and it felt good. We never spoke again, but peace replaced resentment. There was joy where once there had been hate. This experience helped me understand Newton's work in a new way. He discovered that when white light passes through a prism, it splits into the colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet). He then organized these colors onto a wheel, showing which shades were opposite each other and which were closely related. Much like I had incorrectly believed that anger was the opposite of hurt, I'd thought blue was the opposite of red, or purple the opposite of orange. But on the color wheel, green is the opposite of red. Orange is the opposite of blue. Yellow is the opposite of violet. When we're trying to find joy, we often hold onto things we think are close to it, but are actually all the way across the board. We fight against pain with anger, thinking it will lead us back to joy, but it only keeps us in the darkness. What if we embrace different laws of joy dynamics? Those that don't follow what feels intuitive or expected. What if the path to joy isn't fighting against pain but moving through it with forgiveness, grace, and self-compassion? I've learned that joy is a profound force – more powerful than anger, mightier than hate. I haven't always understood how to seek it, but Newton taught me that things like love, peace, and joy make life worth living. And that our job is to learn how to fight darkness not with more darkness, but with light.

Chapter 3: Joy in Crisis: Finding Light in Darkness

The server placed my coke on the table, carefully maneuvering around the stack of books I'd brought to read. "The Dalai Lama, Star Wars, and... Dr. Seuss?" he observed with amusement. I explained I was researching for a book about joy, wondering if it might be a force rather than just emotions – a bit like the Jedi and their connection to the Force. His eyes lit up. "I have a master's degree in philosophy. This is sort of my thing," he said, before recommending Friedrich Nietzsche. I thought he was crazy, but I took his advice. At the bookstore, I asked for Nietzsche's "lighter work" (an oxymoron if ever there was one), and ended up with "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." The protagonist, Zarathustra, is an übersmart hermit who descends from his mountain cave to share his wisdom with humanity – whom he refers to as "rabble." When the townspeople laugh at his philosophies, he returns to his cave in despair and lies there for seven days. I found Zarathustra to be a mansplaining douchebag, but I finished the book anyway. Its culmination is the doctrine of eternal recurrence: the idea that we experience the same life, with the same events, forever and ever. At the end, Zarathustra and his disciples celebrate this concept with "The Drunken Song," which acknowledges that life is full of woe, but joy gives life and "wants deep, profound eternity." This connected with a moment from my pregnancy, when hormones had me crying constantly. My husband found me sobbing over an insurance commercial that showed a wedding, a baby, and an elderly couple. "Don't you think life is so beautiful sometimes? Doesn't that make you feel sad?" I asked him through tears. This sentiment hit me hard because joy can indeed feel heavy. The most beautiful, meaningful moments lodge themselves deep inside our souls and cause us to wrestle with mortality. When you first fall in love, you want that feeling to last forever. When you hold your newborn, you want that moment to last forever. All joy wants is eternity – deep, profound eternity. This year, I took my children to our family cemetery at Maple Hill. As we laid flowers on graves, my daughter noticed the dash between the birth and death dates on her great-great-grandmother's tombstone. "Is that a minus sign?" she asked. I explained that the dash represents the entirety of life – whatever happens between birth and death. Later, I found her with flowers from her great-great-grandmother's grave arranged in her hair, claiming she was Te Fiti from the movie Moana. My grandfather and I just laughed, knowing that Grandma Bea wouldn't mind. Life is like a cosmic version of the game show Supermarket Sweep, where contestants race through a store grabbing the most valuable items before time runs out. We've each been given a finite budget of time – whether that's 35 years, 75 years, or 100 years – and we careen down the aisles of life, spending that budget on what we think matters most. But too often, I've loaded up on trivial things when real connections and experiences were right in front of me. Joy isn't necessarily expensive in traditional terms, but it requires the exquisite payment of intention and attention to find it. I can't help us navigate a journey to joy without acknowledging our mortality. We're all playing in the graveyard in the time we have, dancing above the graves of those who've gone before. We can use our dash to become relentless joy-seekers, or we can wallow in the inevitable. When we make peace with our mortality, we can fully engage in joyful living. It means we don't wait for a diagnosis to climb the mountain, love deeper, or speak sweeter – we do it now. Joy pairs with the knowledge of our brief existence, showing up as the power of the bittersweet. It's a choice, a decision that despite time flying, we see light and connection and meaning. Our treasure is time, and where we spend it is where our hearts reside. I want to make sure the things I pursue in the name of joy are the things that can go with me into eternity.

Chapter 4: The Comparison Trap: Breaking Free from Self-Doubt

I stood in line at Publix, watching two pecan pies cruise down the conveyor belt in their plastic containers. "No self-respecting Southerner can show up to Thanksgiving without a pie!" I rationalized to myself. "Paper or plastic?" the cashier asked. "Plastic is fine," I replied, avoiding eye contact, unable to face my shame. Contraband in hand, I fled the scene, trashing the receipt on the way out. It was just one lie. One little pie lie. It all started with a phone call from my mother-in-law asking what I could bring for Thanksgiving dinner. After years on the Thanksgiving sidelines, I was eager to make my culinary mark in the Backstrom family. "I'm bringing a pineapple casserole," I said. Easy, cheesy, and foolproof – a fantastic choice given my limited cooking abilities. But that wasn't enough. "And a pie," I added hastily. Growing up Southern meant generations of cookbooks that served as proof of family excellence. Getting your recipe into a Junior League cookbook cemented your legacy as a good Southern woman. Plus, my mother practically raised us on pecan farms, where we'd spend days collecting nuts that would become delicious pies. I was born to cook pecan pie – except I wasn't. My plan to learn from my mother fell apart when she unexpectedly sold her house. Suddenly Thanksgiving was approaching, and I had no pie. So I bought two from Publix, removed all packaging evidence, transferred them to glass pie dishes, and rewrapped them in aluminum foil. The deception was going perfectly until my mother-in-law started asking questions: "How did you make the crust?" and "Where did you buy the pecans?" Under the pressure, I cracked: "I didn't make the dadgum pies! They were on sale at Publix." Relief washed over me, followed quickly by hot-faced shame as I faced a table of baffled in-laws. Why did I feel compelled to posture with homemade pies instead of arriving as my authentic self, proudly declaring my Publix purchase? The answer is comparison – that thief of joy that whispers we're not enough, that we need to be someone else to be accepted. I've spent too long trying to be what I thought others expected, whether it was attempting to become an astronaut in middle school (despite hating science and fearing heights), joining the PTA despite being a natural "paper plate parent," or pretending to bake pies I'd actually purchased. For thirty-eight years, I've tried to find my place in this world, chasing a perfect job, body, life, spouse – and after failing to achieve any of these things, I believed the failure was mine. My edges were too wonky. I was too much here, not enough there. Every day, I brought my best and tried my hardest, but the life I imagined never materialized. I felt exhausted from the effort of just being alive. Then I remembered watching my eighteen-month-old son struggle with a wooden shape sorter, trying to force a star-shaped block through a circle-shaped hole. He hammered and whined and finally threw the toy across the room in frustration. Instead of lecturing him, I simply held him as he cried. He didn't need a lesson in shapes or patience – he needed comfort while negotiating the heartbreaking physics of star blocks and square holes. Perhaps it's time we stop trying to force ourselves into shapes that don't fit us. Maybe we need to embrace our unique edges instead of hammering against them. What if we said, "I am not a PTA mom, and that's okay. More than okay – it's part of what makes me special. I am not less than; I'm a different shape." If we were all square-shaped pegs in this world, it would look pretty dang square. Those edges that make it hard to fit in are the same edges that make you a star. Believe me, the things that make you weird are exactly what makes you wonderful.

Chapter 5: Community and Connection: The Heartbeat of Joy

I love Jesus, but I struggle with community. Part of it stems from social anxiety, part from past hurts. When my husband and I were newlyweds, we decided to try a small group Bible study. I was nervous but went anyway, clutching my Bible in one hand and Ian's hand in the other. The topic was heaven, and a guy named Sam described angels surrounding God's throne, singing "Holy, holy, holy" without stopping. "Doesn't that sound amazing?" he asked enthusiastically. Everyone nodded except me. When invited to share my thoughts, I blurted out, "Heaven sounds pretty dang stressful. Singing one word over and over for thousands of years? I feel like I'd go crazy." The room fell silent. I rambled on about how I imagined God as a lion like Aslan from Narnia rather than the human form in Sam's picture, and how I hoped to go straight to Narnia after death because I love talking animals. My husband stared at the floor as if wishing to sink into it. Years later, my two-year-old son mentioned seeing "the little girl who sleeps in our house" – a girl I couldn't see, with "red eyes" no less. Terrified, I consulted the internet about ghost removal (which yielded unhelpful results) and even asked Facebook for advice. Parents shared similar stories: twins having tea parties with their dead great-grandmother, children describing details about deceased relatives they'd never met. After many "sightings" of this "Night Night Angel," I finally asked my son to show me his ghost friend. He pointed behind the couch, and there I saw two little red lights – simply a projection from our entertainment system onto the corner of the wall. This experience reminded me how easily we create phantom narratives. Just as I transformed two innocent red dots into a ghost story, I've done the same with my social interactions. I've convinced myself that groups like that small Bible study hated me, when in reality, they reached out afterward saying they enjoyed the conversation and hoped I'd return. Where they saw humor and a potential friend, I remembered head nods and golf claps. I exchange the direct messages people send for the ones I've written in my head. And the cycle of perceived rejection continues. If you deeply crave joy, it's going to require making community not just a priority but a risk you're willing to take. Will you get hurt? Definitely. Will you have times you overtalk, overshare, undershare, panic, or hide? Probably. But finding your people is awkward by nature. Walking into a room where you don't know anybody and beginning the dance of conversation is weird. "Hi! What do you do, what do you like, what do you not like, do you always dress like this, how could you possibly like that movie, you run how many miles a day, wow that's impressive, sometimes I run to the bathroom." Peopling is hard because you're reaching into the unknown, trying to make a connection. It's vulnerable and scary, a little unclear and uncomfortable. Until it isn't. Until you find your people. Hold on for that moment. Because you will find them. We're built for it. It's literally in our DNA. You may need less community than some or more than others. You may prefer contemplative folks or big personalities. Whatever your taste, in a world of 7.5 billion people, there's a place and people for you. But too often we exchange our deep need for community for staying safe or cushioned from possible rejection. We tell ourselves ghost stories about what happened last time or what might happen if we try again. But as long as you operate from insecurity, joy in your life will be scarce. You might have moments here and there, but it won't fill your life to the brim. And who wants a life with "just enough" joy? You want crazy joy, the kind that fills every room in your heart and explodes through the windows of your soul. So take the risk. Let go of the ghost stories you've been telling yourself and get out of the house. Friendship is out there, ready to be experienced – if you can let go of your insecurity. What you'll find is joy in abundance.

Chapter 6: Building Resilience: Joy as a Survival Tool

Ten years later, I was a newlywed college student looking for a new "church home." Ian suggested we try a few "small groups" (Bible studies that are hosted in homes). I agreed that this sounded a lot less intimidating than going into a big building. So we did a little research, picked a group, and made it a date. The first thing I noticed when we pulled up to the house was the number of cars out front. "Good Lord!" I yelped. "There's a million of them. Are you sure we signed up for a small group?" Ian checked the address. "Yep, this is the house. Babe, we don't have to go in if you're scared." My palms were sweating, and my heart was pounding, but I lied and said I was fine. I walked into the house with a Bible in one hand, Ian's hand in the other. The group was friendly, if a little bit stiff. We were ushered toward a large, comfy space. We took a seat on the floor, like the rest of the group, about thirty young adults total. A lady named Betty opened the group in prayer—and I remember she prayed specifically for our conversation to be vulnerable and honest. The reason I remember is that I heard her words and thought, Phew, thank goodness. I don't have to pretend! The topic was heaven, which I was excited to discuss, and a guy named Sam opened the conversation with a verse from Revelation. He had a picture of God, sitting on a throne, surrounded by shining angels. It was weird because the image looked strikingly similar to an alcoholic family member. Sam read the verse, about angels in heaven surrounding the throne of God. Day and night, they worship Him, singing, "Holy, holy, holy." "I can't even imagine. They never stop singing!" Sam gushed. "Doesn't that sound amazing?" Everyone in the room was nodding enthusiastically, and I cut a quick glance at Ian. I wanted to know—I needed to know—if this sounded "amazing" to him. He gave me a look that I surely misread because it seemed to say "Don't say a word." Didn't he hear Ms. Betty praying for the group to be vulnerable and honest? I raised my hand, and Sam smiled. "Great! A newcomer. Tell us your name! We'd love to hear your thoughts!" "Hey, I'm Mary Katherine, and uh… spirit of honesty, right? Heaven sounds pretty dang stressful. Singing one word just over and over for thousands and thousands of years? I feel like I'd go crazy, you know. Does anyone worry about that?" Nobody seemed to share this concern, and I could feel my face growing flushed. My mind started racing and my mouth started moving, and from there, things only got worse. "Okay, so I know there's no suffering in heaven, but just imagining it gives me anxiety. Y'all remember that show with Lamb Chop in it and the song that never ended? I couldn't listen to it for two minutes. And it's crazy, but that picture of God looks just like my great-uncle. He is not a nice man. He drinks lots of vodka and yells at the kids in his yard. Anyways, I've always imagined God as a lion—you know, like Aslan from Narnia? Human bodies just weird me out, I guess, so I don't think of God like that. Anyways, I hope when I die, I'll go straight to Narnia. I'm a huge fan of talking animals." My hands got clammy as the silence grew thick. I looked at my husband for a rescue, but he was currently staring at the floor like he wished he could sink inside of it. "Gosh, it's so fun to have new ideas," Sam said. "Isn't it fun, everyone?" The room was torn between head nods and golf claps, and I wanted to turn into sand.

Chapter 7: Living Authentically: Joy in Being Yourself

My best friend Meredith is obsessed with murder shows. It's hilarious because she's this precious, gentle lady from Utah who has three kids and drives a Honda. Mer will whip up homemade muffins, snuggle under a warm blanket, and binge-watch serial killers with the same casual comfort most people have watching home renovation shows. Watching with her is a blast because she's done deep-dive research – articles, podcasts, Reddit threads. She's like a safari guide taking you through the savanna, except we're learning about the Unabomber. While Mer loves true crime, I prefer conspiracy theories. Not because I believe them, but because they're like mental puzzles that force me to logic myself out of wacky boxes. Take flat-earthers, for instance. When I discovered people genuinely believe Earth is flat, I was astonished. Diving into that rabbit hole led me to beautiful science disproving the theory. If Earth were shaped like a Frisbee, gravity would pull everything toward the center, creating a massive brackish pool. There would be no tectonic movement, so no mountains or canyons. Plants would grow diagonally. Without a planetary core creating a magnetic field, charged particles from the sun would strip away our atmosphere, and we'd all be cooked like bacon. The irony? When you put yourself at the center of the universe, everything else stops working. This perspective has helped me understand friendship differently. Growing up, I believed friendships were forever. We tied pink bracelets around our wrists, proclaiming "Friends forever!" and "We will never change!" Twenty years later, those faded bracelets rest in a trunk with photographs and letters. Those friends? We've loosely stayed in touch through social media, but our lives have drifted apart. And that's okay. It isn't sad or tragic. It just is. If you've lived long enough to earn a few gray hairs, you've learned that you can count on one hand the number of friends who remain through significant life transitions. People grow as individuals, and our lives take different directions. If you want deep joy in friendship, perspective is paramount. When my son was six months old, we played peekaboo every morning. The look of surprise on his face when he uncovered his eyes – it was like he couldn't believe I was still there. Babies love peekaboo because they're learning about object permanence – that when something disappears, it isn't necessarily gone. My son is eight now, and we don't play peekaboo anymore. He knows that when I leave the room, house, or state, I continue to exist. My best friends live in four different states, and I rarely see them in person. But our friendship isn't gone. I can call Mer anytime. There are weeks when we speak almost daily, then weeks without so much as a meme texted between us. These absences don't mean our friendship is going through a rough patch. Time passes, but love remains. When we apply object permanence to friendship, community feels less fragile. Instead of believing friendship dies when separated, we can see that like planets, we each orbit the sun at our own pace. Sometimes our paths cross and worlds overlap, sometimes we feel further away. It's a natural progression of human relationships. The ache for community, longing for friendship, missing those we love – all physiological proof that we need connection. Like hunger signals our need for food, this longing signals our need for people. So when it's hard to show up for the sake of others, love yourself enough to acknowledge your needs and meet them. Show up. Even when people are peopley, community is scary, and you fear getting burned. Show up. You can't pour from an empty cup; you absolutely need community. And when you let others pour into your cup, you'll be surprised how quickly it fills. Despite fears and doubts, when you build community, when you show up for yourself and others, crazy joy shows up too.

Summary

The journey to joy isn't about reaching a destination but about embracing the path itself, with all its twists, turns, and unexpected beauty. Like resilient weeds that bloom through sidewalk cracks, joy thrives in unlikely places – not dependent on perfect conditions like happiness, but flourishing despite difficulty. Throughout our exploration, we've discovered that joy is a force more powerful than anger, a companion more faithful than fleeting happiness, and a light that persists even in our darkest moments. We've seen how comparison steals our joy by convincing us we're the wrong shape, how community nourishes our souls even when relationships change seasons, and how authenticity allows us to experience joy as our true selves. What if we stopped chasing the moving target of happiness and instead cultivated joy in the present moment? What if we recognized the unique shape of our lives – not as misfit pieces but as stars too special to be forced into circular holes? The science confirms what our hearts already know: we are wired for connection, built for community, and designed to experience profound joy even amid life's challenges. As we navigate our brief time between birth and death – that meaningful dash on our eventual tombstones – we can choose to be relentless joy-seekers. We can gather those resilient "weeds" blooming through life's cracks, making bouquets from what others might overlook. When we embrace our authentic selves, nurture meaningful connections, and find humor even in difficult seasons, we discover that joy isn't just something we pursue – it's something we become. This is the greatest lesson of all: joy isn't waiting for us at some future destination; it's available right here, right now, in the journey itself.

About Author

Loading...

Mary Katherine Backstrom

Read more