Jerri Kelley

“You post all this sad stuff.
Are you ever happy?
Do you ever laugh?”

LOL Um, yes, to both, a lot.

You can ask my website designer for my photography page I have fuzzy slippers, and I am not afraid to use them. 😁

Being serious, sorry I am literally laughing out loud at the irony, I don’t know if saying I am happy most of the time is accurate because I feel sad when I miss my brother or my parents. I felt the normal emotions of my life changing so radically last year, and I have been stretched hard mentally the last few weeks, which has left me feeling exhausted and cranky, so no, maybe “happy” is not accurate. However, despite all that, I do feel joy. In fact, my overall take on life is joy.

I’ve read that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger or gives you a dark sense of humor. Baby, I’m Batman. 🤣

I don’t get a lot of the “slapstick” jokes. I don’t like most comedy movies, but I laughed so hard in the theater during “Nobody” that Raymond Kelley was shaking trying not to laugh out loud at me. If you have never seen it, it’s a kill everybody movie. Not John Wick kill everybody but maybe Expendables kill everybody. Anyway, there are some hysterical moments in it. I think Braxton in Account 2 is a riot! Now, these are not movies I suggest for most folks. They are not Christian. They are violent and foul-mouthed with characters who have a unique set of morals (shall we say?), and I laugh at the lines, the characters indiosyncrasies, and the “It’s a Wonderful World” moments.

Another friend and I went on a day trip around where we grew up and followed roads we hoped were taking us to familiar places. It was fantastic! Definitely a 10/10 laughable choose your own adventure trip, and I was driving down this two-lane blacktop and saw a sign that said, “Seldom Used Road.” I immediately hit the brakes because of course we had to take it. It was an L around a grove of trees that rejoined the black top a few hundred yards further up the highway. We laughed. I am still laughing.

Yesterday I was telling a long-time friend about the weird flowers I find, and I sent blurry pictures to friends of flowers I’ve never noticed before but are now turning the neighborhood purple. I got on the ground, lay on the sidewalk so I didn’t squish any of the flowers, and took pictures. The pictures are blurry, but the flowers are AWESOME!

I went to a new-to-me restaurant last week and planned to have chicken enchiladas. I ended up with some other chicken thing I’ve never had but would order again and ate all of the black bean salsa they put on my table. And I enjoyed every second of it. Especially the black bean salsa.

For me, joy is not a mood. It isn’t an emotion. “Happy”, I think is an emotion, but JOY is a way of living. It’s a decision to find things that feed my soul. For me that is doing new things, the weirdness of flowers, writing profusely, arcade games (especially Jurassic Park with my cousin and those stupid spider things. I’m sure the entire place heard us laughing.), being content and peaceful sitting on my back porch or on a beach and watching the sunset.

Life is wacky. It can be utterly exhausting in every way. It can crush you and shatter pieces of you that you never fully get back.

Joy is a choice of how to see the world, and myself, despite the crazy.

So am I happy? Eh. Usually.
Do I laugh much? Loudly and often.
Am I joyful? All the time.

Y’all have a joyful day!
Jerri Kelley