Living Joy Out Loud

Finding my Fun Buddy.

If you think about what fun entails, it’s really about the experience of positive emotions. Hollie Petit, Ph.D.

The November prompt in the publication, Everything Fun, is all about celebrating the fun people in our lives, but when I read Hollie’s prompt I felt a little deflated. She calls on us to write about our “Fun Buddy”.

I was stumped when I tried to think of someone to call “My Fun Buddy”. Ironically, I am in the middle of exploring the complexities of fun and joy so this notion of someone I actively “experience positive emotions” with stayed with me.

Don’t get me wrong. I have friends. I have family. We spend a fair amount of time together doing fun stuff, but to single out one person, would be a hard task.

Do I have more fun with one person over another? Not really. I have different fun with different people but the “experience of positive emotions” is relatively even.

If I pick one, will others be hurt? Being that I have different fun with different people how do I quantify this? The quality of each relationship has its own textures and nuances. The fun factor in each relationship has depth and meaning onto itself. How can I compare?

The Hard Questions:

Joy…. it's the thing, right? Joy is the point of the life we are living. Finding it in the mundane, everyday goings-on of our lives is the secret. Living and honoring the “sacred ordinary” as Jenine "Jeni" Bsharah Baines called it in her About Me story, is what we are all after.

Am I right? I think I am or at least I am on to something.

In my family of origin, I am the caboose, the last of eight. Being the youngest, I didn’t have to create fun. I found it and begged to be allowed to join it. Creating fun is not my strong suit.

I am also a bit of a chameleon, able to adapt to whatever others and situations call for. This is also linked to my familial position. If you wanted to join in, you had to be what they needed.

Another thing, I am Pisces. One of the things I have read over and over about this water sign is that we swim in two different directions. We are one thing on the inside and another on the outside. You guessed it, I am an introvert.

All this being said, the hard questions or realizations I am coming to lately are that I live my joy inwardly. I learned ions ago that if there isn’t something fun to join, go inward.

I learned to find quiet joy in nature, writing, and whatever else my imagination conjured up. This is a wonderful skill except it doesn’t always translate well in relationships.

My Fun Buddy

My Fun Buddy is me. I am quite content to be my own fun buddy, but instead of just going inward for solitary amusement I have started to ask myself, “How can I live my joy out loud?” What would I like to do and do I want to involve others?

The answer to involving others isn’t always yes but it often is. I am honoring myself by realizing that the things I find fun are worthy. I can be me, out loud.

Living joy out loud is my new mantra and I look forward to sharing my self-created joy with others… and with myself.

Find the Fun

Buddy prompt here:

And some Fun Buddy posts:

Tagging a few “Medium Fun Buddies” who have made writing here an absolute pleasure.

Carolyn Hastings Carol Burt Monoreena Acharjee Majumdar Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles pockett dessert Erika Burkhalter Jenny Lane Margie Willis John O'Neill Ellie Jacobson Anne Bonfert Jane Frost (Jane Grows Garden Rooms) Adrienne Beaumont Christine Graves Raine Lore jennydwyer Amanda Laughtland Mary Collins Maria Rattray Angie Mangino and to the many I forgot here, I appreciate all the fun times.