For Empaths

I know the pain of the world weighs heavy on you. I know you’re thinking of the young boy you happened upon last week, sleeping alone in an unlocked car. I know you can’t shake the thought of every lost puppy or child or soul, each of them looking for home. I know you wish they could all follow breadcrumbs straight to you. When your mind wanders, it finds destruction in countries that are oceans away. Worlds you've never seen and likely never will. It lingers there until you must pull yourself back to reality — well, your reality. Because it’s all reality, isn’t it? And isn’t that terrible?

Then joy comes. It startles you as you're gazing into the eyes of your friend’s baby. It finds you mid-laugh, the kind of laugh that instinctively jerks your head backwards. It spreads throughout your entire body at the touch of a loved one's hand, at the last page of a good book, at the sight of a fluffy little dog. Joy even once found you at a funeral as you scanned the room of grievers. It whispered in your ear, ‘Wow... to be loved this deeply even in death.’

Don’t worry if it doesn’t make any sense. How could you be happy in a world like this? How couldn’t you be happy?

Joy isn't a luxury. Let it find you. Don’t question why it’s there or where it came from even though you spent most of yesterday weeping. Open yourself up, let joy in, and leave the door open. Air out the damp and stuffy space where you store angst and anger about realities you cannot change. I know you call it empathy, but empathy always makes room for joy.