Tiny Joys, Pt. 9: One Year of Tiny Joys!

On painting by the ocean, (French) girl dinner, and dating with intention.

Hello all!

Welcome back to another monthly edition of Tiny Joys. I meant to write this yesterday, but honestly, I was struggling. It felt hard to write about joy on a day associated with so much pain and heartbreak. Who was I to write about what brought me me joy?

But then, I remembered why Tiny Joys started. I was confronting a second autoimmune diagnosis — multiple sclerosis — exactly this time last year, and wasn’t sure how to face it. How to move forward, and still write about anything people cared about, when I wasn’t even sure what to say to myself.

But the only way to move forward is to find reminders of hope and joy in smaller acts. Yes, the big, huge moments in life are very exciting, but a Tiny Joy can be a lot of more powerful. It can exist quietly and exude a warmth unlike anything else.

This month has been filled with a lot of highs, mixed in with some deep moments of loneliness and self-doubt. Maybe that’s just a succinct definition of what it means to be human, but these moments can still make me feel lost nonetheless.

I came to Europe two months ago with the intention of settling in one place and just trying to live there, but I’ve done, well, the exact opposite. I’ve moved around every two weeks or so, and been in London, Reading, Portugal, Paris, Biarritz, Gaillac and Mallorca. It’s been a huge privilege to be able to visit these places, and it turns out I still have this desire to explore, even when I tell myself I should stay in one place.

Most of the men I’ve met on dates or at bars always turn out be “giving up their apartments to travel for the next 6 months.” I guess that’s also the energy I’m putting out, apparently.

I feel this push and pull within me often - the desire to explore, combatting the desire for stability in one place. Maybe both can exist somehow, but I haven’t figured it out yet.

As free as I feel, I still let expectations of others get in my head. That this isn’t the way to live at this age. Or letting others’ opinions play out.

I recognize the way I live is different or non-traditional, and while I feel good about it most of the time, there are days when I just want someone to go, “I see what you’re doing and how you challenge yourself every day to live a full life and that in itself it hard and brave.” Maybe I just have to learn to say that to myself.

But now, for some Tiny Joys—