Joy In Motion

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When Jody was a kid she liked to put on shows for her siblings and parents — and anyone else she could persuade to attend. Not until the show began did she know what she would do. The shows were strictly improvisational.

Sometimes she sang. Sometimes she danced. Often she would perform skits or do stand-up comedy. She would also tell stories, making them up as she told them.

Jody had been a performer since she could walk and talk. When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up she shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know. I guess I’ll know when I know.”

But she never knew what she wanted to be until she was in her fifties. Before that she was whatever the situation called for. She was a student then a mother then a bank teller. She kept performing to small crowds such as her husband and three children or small groups of friends or co-workers. She was never very serious about it. It was just something that she naturally did.

When the kids left the nest and the husband traded her in for a younger model Jody was suddenly alone without an audience. She fell into a stultifying depression. Feeling utterly worthless, she never performed for anyone anymore.

Instead of the spontaneous extrovert she had always been she morphed into a sad and quiet introvert. It was like she had been turned inside out.

After five years of lifeless depression Jody decided one day that she simply had to change. She wanted to be herself again.

This reminded her of her childhood when everyone kept asking her what she wanted to be when she grew up. She finally knew. She wanted to be herself.

She wanted to be a conduit for joy to flow through. She wanted to express that joy whether she had an audience or not. And it did not matter how she expressed the joy. She wanted to feel that joy gushing through her in everything she did.

Jody took up yoga and she began taking long nature walks (where she would perform for the trees). She began meditating and she began using a mantra…

I am joy in motion.

Repeating the mantra throughout her day, her life situation began to change. The depression slowly lifted and she became herself again. People wanted to be her friend again and without trying, her audience grew.

Jody finally realized that all she ever wanted to be was someone who spread joy to others. That was what filled her with joy. Life for her once again became a spontaneous improvisational show that never stopped.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. Complete White Feather Archive Index

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