Available
Where’s the door today?
There was a time when joy didn’t require anything from me.
Childhood.
You remember this. Backyards. Bikes. Climbing trees. Making plans with nothing more than “Hey — let’s go.” No preparation. No intention-setting. No asking yourself whether you were emotionally available for a good time.
You just went.
And the good time showed up because you did.
Today I felt that familiar tightening in my chest . Not dramatic — just enough to notice. So I stopped, did my breathing, and waited to see what floated in.
What floated in was the backyard.
Not this backyard. The one from fifty years ago. The one where nobody had to try to feel anything because feeling things was just what happened when you showed up and climbed the tree.
And I caught myself thinking — why can’t I have that back?
Here’s what I realized.
I didn’t lose it.
Back then I wasn’t generating joy. I wasn’t working toward it or scheduling it or making sure I’d earned enough rest to be receptive to it.
I was just available to it.
That’s the whole difference.
Available.
Not unburdened — I had burdens at nine years old too, small and enormous the way childhood burdens are. Not carefree — I cared about plenty of things. Just... present enough that when joy knocked I wasn’t in a meeting with my anxiety.
The door was open. It walked in.
The proof came almost immediately.
The moment I started thinking about what actually brings me joy — painting, a cup of coffee that’s the right temperature for once, a song I haven’t thought about in years — I felt my body shift. The tightening softened. Not gone. Just loosened.
That told me everything.
Joy isn’t absent.
It’s responsive.
Which means the question isn’t why can’t I have that back.
It’s simpler than that.
Where’s the door today?
Not a whole day. Not a whole life. Not a radical restructuring of how you move through the world.
Just the door.
Open it a crack.
See what walks in.
If something in this story stayed with you — if you felt the recognition before you felt the words for it — I want you to know there’s a place for that.
I’ve been quietly building something called the Monirose Soul Circle. It’s a small group of women who are done waiting for their life to feel like theirs again. Not a support group. Not a place to process pain, though we understand it. A place to think out loud with women who have lived enough to know what they’re talking about — and who want peers, not cheerleaders.
We share what’s true. We ask the real questions. We hold each other to the version of ourselves we’re trying to grow into, not the version we’ve been performing.
If you’re just beginning to understand that you’re allowed to want what you want — that’s exactly the right moment to come in.
You don’t need to have it figured out. You just need to be done pretending you don’t care.
Come see if it feels like home.
And if something in this piece made you pause, nod, or feel a little less alone — please give it a heart before you go. That one small tap tells the algorithm this conversation matters. It puts these words in front of another woman who needs to hear them today. She's out there. Help me find her.