Joy, The Look Of

Joy: Noun; the emotion of great happiness.

What does that mean, exactly? Joy in and of itself is something that I think can't be explained by mere definition of another grouping of lesser words. "Happy" is so overused. What does "happy" mean? When I think happy, I think of laughter and giddiness. Joy, in my opinion, is something so much more so.

Joy is when you smile at the mere thought of something.

The other day at work my manager and I were talking about the spelling of Wednesday and whether it was Wednesday or Thursday. He then brought up his son, Sebastian, and how Sebastian always asks his dad if it's "windsday" - it's a cute little saying from a Winny the Pooh episode. Ryan, my manager, then went on to talk about how he was writing a small song based off of his son's constant question, "Daddy, is it windsday? Can we go fly a kite?"

I commented at how cute it was - beyond the fact that Ryan was writing a song based off of such a cute saying from his son - but because of how he smiled every time he thought about it.

His smile was the kind of smile that you cry at because of the joy and happiness that is conveyed within it. Joy is something that isn't as simple as 'the emotion of happiness', but an outward expression of true, deep emotion. Something beyond happiness. Saying that Joy is 'happiness' deadens the word. It makes it less magical; less meaningful. It adds a dead weight to a word that soars among others.

I never really had known what to attribute the word 'joy' to. Joy is something a parent feels when they've got a memory of their child locked away in their mind forever. Joy is something that a word can't be attributed to. Joy is pure bliss.

It's interesting how much we value words.

Pit Of Dread

It cannot be explained. They almost never can. The omen that only you receive; that only you notice. The digging at your core that cannot be understood until the moment has already passed.

The day had been going quite well; nothing out of the ordinary or uncommon. Yet as I sat in traffic, waiting for the light to turn green so I could pull into the parking lot of work, belting out my voice to whatever was playing at that point, a twinge within me formed.

I wouldn't call it pain. I wouldn't call it terror or fear. It wasn't anxiety or happiness, nor was it anything akin to a feeling of euphoria or excitement.

It felt like dread.

The word dread is commonly attached to words like, 'fear' and 'anxiety', which I already said it felt unlike. Dread itself - the word that is - has a deeper, harder, more raw meaning or feeling behind it. It seems more powerful and more potent than 'fear'.

As the day passed, the feeling lingered. At times it subsided and let me laugh with my coworkers, yet it never really left. It was persistent of staying a deep pit within me. Whenever I thought that perhaps it was finally gone, it jumped back at me in surprise. Each time the feeling grew more powerful. By the time we were closing the store, my manager, who's become more of a friend than a coworker, told me he would be going camping this weekend - which is unusual. I'm not used to not seeing him. I told him to be careful - I felt like I had to. At a point I had said to myself, 'That's stupid, he'll be fine. Nothing's going to happen. You're just being paranoid'.

And then a feeling stronger than the dread erupted, combating that dread and was like a klaxon to my system. I had to tell him to be careful, that I was having this feeling inside of me. He laughed at first, asking if I thought that he was prone to getting in trouble and I told him that it was the feeling that told me that since I wouldn't be seeing him, I wanted to let him know to be safe. He said he would, and the bad feeling was probably karma - someone near me would be faced with their repercussions to past actions. I told all of my coworkers to be careful; I didn't want anyone to go without a warning. If that's what the feeling is that continues to linger within me is.

"Ever have a bad feeling about something?"

The Silent Observer

I like people. I've stated this before. And recently, I've found myself either at work, or when I'm out with the family or with friends, that I people watch. I like to sit back and see people interact with others. Their actions, their quirks, the way they'll stare off into space and then suddenly come back to reality in a shock and quickly make it look as if they're doing something; hoping to the high heavens that no one saw them dazed and confused.

Today, bored and senseless at work, I was standing around, once again, waiting for customers to come to me - major issue with being a service desk person. Anyway, in waiting around with nothing to do and no magazines to read, (Staples has axed them from the planograms), I began to take interest in my fellow associates.

I noticed that my one manager enjoys staring at myself and the other girls when he thinks we aren't looking. I noticed that one of the girls will give one of the other guys a dirty look whenever his back is turned and then smile at him whenever he looks at her. I saw one of our tech guys get an exasperated look as he walked away from a customer after he had just been so nice and considerate to them a moment before. I noticed how people walk in the store. My manager walks with purpose and a little bounce in his step, while one of the merchandisers walks slow with his head down most of the time moping about something.

I saw how the new guy is full of himself and believes he's better than people that have been there for years. I saw how most of the people I work with look out the huge windows we have at the front of the building with looks of longing and hope on their face, as if they were caged birds waiting for the chance to fly away from their imprisonment.

People are interesting.

I like people.

Bubble Wrap

What is it about bubble wrap? Seriously; it's like America's drug that doesn't have nasty side effects. You see an open container with bubble wrap and whatever was packaged inside of it is suddenly deterred to 'unimportant'. You scream, "Bubble wrap!", make a dive for the stuff, and then sit there for a few hours trying to pop every single bubble on the sheet.

It's also an amazing past time when one is bored at work. Like I was yesterday. One of the guys was opening cameras to go onto our display and one of them came packaged in bubble wrap. We had been having random little petty arguments over stupid stuff (just to help pass time), and he said, "Here's a present from me to you."

It occupied my time for the remainder of my shift. I would be standing there, staring off into space, and just popping bubbles. Customers would walk up and laugh at how it seemed to take all of my concentration to play with it. The only thing I could say was that it would be the same for just about anyone else handed bubble wrap.

It's like orange tic tacks. You have to eat them all; there's gotta be something inside of those little capsules that make them addictive. Because seriously, if you've got a package of them in your pocket at the beginning of the day, chances are, it'll be empty come the end of that day. I don't know why, but just about every person I've ever spoken to is the same as I am. It's like they're a strange little drug that don't really screw you up. I, however, have to buy them if they're on sale. Like they were a few weeks ago for fifty cents at Giant.

It's strange how our psyche works.