I’ve been thinking a lot about joy lately and how to sustain it even when life is challenging or, worse, when it’s tragic. Twenty-five years ago, I stood on the Brooklyn Promenade and watched as the second plane slammed into the World Trade Center.
I think about that morning often, especially when the sky is that icy blue color you only see in September. All these years later, my mind still struggles to reconcile what I saw. I know it happened. I watched it with my own eyes. And yet, somehow, it still feels unr
That day was probably the most afraid I have ever felt in my life. After the first tower collapsed, I literally ran home to call my mother to tell her I loved her in case I never talked to her again.
I hung up the phone and felt a numbness, almost a resignation. I knew if more planes were coming to crash into buildings, there was not one thing I could do about it. I felt helpless.
I can still recall almost every detail of that day as if it happened yesterday. I spent much of it with Russell, a man from my church that I barely knew except that he lived down the street from me. I called him because I did not want to die alone in my apartment. He is now one of my closest friends and someone whom I consider family.
At one point, after realizing we had gone most of the day without eating, we had a long, serious discussion about what we should have in case it was our last meal.
We weren’t sure it wouldn’t be.
New York City was never the same after that day. And neither was I.
Sure, things eventually went back to business as usual. I went back to work a few days later because it felt like the thing I had to do. But my sense of “safety” was shattered. The naïveté many of us carry when we are younger, the belief that somehow things will always go our way, was gone.
Intellectually, we all know life is short. We know it can change in an instant. We like Instagram and TikTok posts about appreciating every day and not taking people for granted. But watching those iconic buildings fall to the ground and knowing that at that moment thousands of lives were lost turned those ideas into something more than platitudes for me.
I had watched it happen. It wasn’t an idea, it was real.
In the weeks after the attacks, my top-floor apartment shook as fighter jets patrolled the coast at all hours of the day and night. The vibrations were sometimes so severe that pictures fell from the walls. I don’t think I got a full night’s sleep for months.
I remember lying in bed well into late October, my body literally aching from the stress. The air was thick with the smell of smoldering debris. A week after the attacks the Anthrax threats began, and multiple times, I had to suddenly run out of whatever building I was in because of a bomb threat. The news cycle was full of reports of the souls recovered in the ruins and the threat of a US retaliation.
I would lie awake consumed with thoughts about people around the world who live with the reality of war every waking moment. I prayed for them and hoped I wouldn’t feel the ache forever.
And sometime around then, I made a decision.
Once the initial shock began to loosen its grip, I started thinking more seriously about how I was spending my time.
I had come uncomfortably close to the possibility of not having more of it. Had it not been for the last-minute cancellation of a meeting with a potential new client, I likely would have been in the vicinity of the towers that morning.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that.
For me, the events of 9/11 profoundly changed my relationship with time. I could no longer rely on the idea that there would always be more of it and that I had all the time in the world to eventually get around to the things and people that mattered to me.
So, I decided to start making different choices about how I was living.
At the time, I worked for a big Wall Street firm and pretty much despised every minute of it. It just wasn’t me.
About a year or so later, I started my first day of journalism school, something I had wanted to do since before I pursued a Business degree in undergrad, which I was believed was a more practical path. Plus every adult I knew told me I’d never make money as a writer.
Three years later, I graduated and quit my job in finance to work as a ghostwriter on my first book. I have been writing in some capacity ever since.
Hours can pass unnoticed when I write. I have a deep sense of fulfillment when I am creating something with words.
I had also always wanted to sing, but had always been too shy to try. It was a secret dream I only expressed in my morning shower and in my car driving alone.
I joined the New York Metro Mass Choir. We had our first rehearsal just a few days after the attacks. The community I found there and the opportunities to perform at historic venues like Lincoln Center, The Beacon Theater, Carnegie Hall, and Madison Square Garden remain among the most thrilling memories of my life.
I even sang solo at a few New York City clubs, including The Bitter End, on the same spot as Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, and Joni Mitchell. And years later, I did my own 10 song set show with a live band at the Strathmore Mansion. When I sing, no matter what kind of music it is, something happens to me that feels almost spiritual. It is bigger than run of the mill happiness. It feels transcendent.
I can carry a tune well enough. But it has nothing to do with being the best singer. It became about pushing myself out of my comfort zone to do something that terrifies me still. I loved the deep rush I felt when I stepped onstage.
And when I wasn’t singing myself, I set a goal for myself of attending a live music or theater performance at least once a month. Every 30 days (if not more often) you could find me front and center at a concert, opera, or Broadway show… in my opinion, among the greatest things New York has to offer.
Once, on a whim, I bought a last-minute box seat on StubHub for $40 to see Sting perform that same night with the Royal Philharmonic during his Symphonicity tour, at the Metropolitan Opera House. The ticket was so unbelievably cheap that I was convinced it was fake and I would be turned away at the door.
When the security guard scanned my ticket and it beeped and turned green, I laughed out loud at my ridiculous good fortune. I could not stop smiling through the entire show.
My box seat was so close to the stage I could practically reach down and touch Sting’s head. I didn’t. But, to this day, I still think he is one of the sexiest men on the planet. And, oh yes… a great performer, too!
I also started taking dance classes again, something I had loved as a child but gave up in my early 20s because I thought I needed to focus on more serious things, like making money. I was kicking and spinning with woman half my age. Not only was it great exercise, but it was a pretty good ego boost when a 21 year old fellow student declared me the “most graceful” in the class.
After having to reschedule a vacation we originally planned for the weekend after 9/11, a week later, my best friend, Kelly, and I summoned up the courage to get on a plane and fly to Maine, one our favorite places. We loved to hike the trails at Acadia, listen for the call of the Loons, and eat lobster and blueberries at every meal.
And a few years later, I realized a dream of spending nearly a month in southern Italy, where I wrote, drank local wine, sampled freshly pressed olive oil, walked in the Festa della Madonna della Consolazione (The Festival of the Madonna) procession, and was a guest at an Italian wedding for a complete stranger where I was welcomed like family.
It was years later that I began to understand that the writing, singing, dancing, traveling, and connections with people had become much more than activities I enjoyed doing. They reminded me what it felt like to be fully myself, fully alive. I have come to recognize that feeling as joy.
I wasn’t necessarily intentionally thinking about joy at these times. I was thinking about getting back to living. About no longer putting off the people, experiences, and parts of myself that I could feel were starting to fade away.
And I am not saying happiness. I am talking about genuine joy. I think there is a difference.
Happiness, to me, is circumstantial. Joy feels different. It is harder to explain and more enduring, like something that belongs to me rather than something circumstances have handed me.
When things are tough, and they do get tough in life, joy can be difficult to reach for.
I am not naïve. I don’t think that singing in the shower will change a cancer diagnosis or pay the mortgage when your bank account is less than zero.
I’ve suddenly lost people I loved, been betrayed by people I trusted, struggled with health issues, been so broke I couldn’t afford the checking account fees, and lived through other periods of life that were really dark.
Pain and disappointment seem capable of finding us without an invitation.
But over the years, I’ve learned that connecting with people who truly love and support me and doing the things that make me feel most alive can help keep those hard things from consuming every part of me.
Joy requires something from me. My intention. My participation.
Two years ago, I bought a house with my dream kitchen. A few weeks later, I got laid off from my job.
It was not a surprise, but it was a significant financial setback. I won’t pretend I was delighted about suddenly losing my income. I wasn’t.
But maybe because I’ve had 20+ years of practice by then, I was able to recognize that something else was also true.
For the first time in years, I had time.
Time to settle into and enjoy my new home. Time to cook in my dream kitchen with herbs and vegetables from the garden I had time to grow. Time to sit on my deck and watch the fall leaves change. Time to have a real conversation with a friend or family member without needing to “jump off” for a work call or something “more important.”
I had time to think about what I wanted the next chapter of my life to look like.
Today, I am working as a communications consultant with nonprofits, agencies, and other organizations doing good work that I care about. I am also running Kellie Box Company, which I started in 2025 after dreaming about it for more than 20 years.
I likely never would have started it if I had not been laid off.
None of this makes losing my job a wonderful thing by any means. But it is evidence that something horrible and something good can be true at the same time. I think genuine joy asks us to make room for both.
I’ve already learned what it feels like to believe there might not be a tomorrow.
So, I still dance a few times a week. I sing at the top of my lungs while I drive or cook dinner. I write in my journal everyday. I walk. I grow flowers. I sit outside with my coffee and enjoy the hummingbirds. I buy outrageously expensive tickets to see Bruno Mars whenever he is in town. And I often take the train to NYC, just to see a Broadway show, have dinner with a friend, and then take the train back home. I travel when I can. I text people I love stupid memes and tell them I love them every chance I get.
And I laugh. A lot.
Because I can genuinely find humor in almost any situation.
I don’t do those things because I believe they erase what is painful in my life or the world around me.
That isn’t what I ask joy to do.
The beautiful things don’t cancel out the painful ones. But I think they can and need to coexist.
I think cultivating joy is largely about developing the capacity to hold two truths about life at once:
Life can be incredibly hard.
And...
There can still be something beautiful to notice, receive, or participate in.
Twenty-five years ago, I think I believed there was a place I would eventually get to where everything would finally be good. Then, the goal was to get through the hard part and arrive where everything would finally be okay.
Today, I think of life more like a mountain.
We spend a great deal of time climbing. Then something happens, and we find ourselves coming down the other side. Sometimes the descent is gradual. Sometimes it is terrifyingly fast. We spend very little time at the summit.
So, if I am only happy when I am standing at the top, when the job is secure, the bank account is flush, everyone I love is well, the world isn’t at war, my body feels good, and every plan is working, then I am going to spend an enormous portion of my life waiting. Waiting to feel good and at peace.
I don’t want to do that.
Twenty-five years after watching the world change in a few minutes, I no longer believe that place exists.
Life will always keep life-ing.
There will always be another climb, another descent, another thing we wish had gone differently or wish hadn’t happened at all.
But there can also be music.
People we love.
Flowers.
Trees.
Morning light.
Friends who become family.
Real, authentic conversation.
A good cup of coffee.
Sunsets.
A perfectly chilled glass of Sancerre.
Pizza.
A long walk on a crisp, cold day.
A cozy sweater.
Stars.
Tomatoes and basil fresh from the garden.
A song that makes us sing or dance.
Some years on the 9/11 anniversary I am so filled with grief and sadness I can barely breathe. I often force myself to sit and listen to the reading of the names out of respect for those lost, including Trudi, a friend from my early NYC days, and Keith, a NYC firefighter who was handsome and charming, and had dated one of my best girlfriends.
This year, I opted to do a media fast and spent a quiet morning in reflection and gratitude. I called and chatted with Kelly and Russell as has become our tradition, and texted with my cousin Bethany on my Dad’s side who was a flight attendant on 9/11. I spent the evening with my Mom’s side of the family celebrating my cousin David’s birthday. And, while there, I didn’t think of the anniversary once.
The day started out hard and then it ended so, so good.
I think that’s life. Up and down. Good and not so good. Awesome and devastating.
I don’t think joy is a place we eventually arrive at or something we find when everything in life finally cooperates as we think it should. I think it is something we cultivate and practice while life is happening.
Joy is not an antidote to suffering. It is evidence that suffering does not get to claim every part of us.
I don’t pursue joy because I am unaware of how difficult life can be. I pursue it because I know exactly how difficult it can be.
And because I got lucky enough to still be here.
___________________________________
Quiet Reflections
-
What are you putting off because you assume there will be more time? Is there a person, experience, dream, or part of yourself you want to make more room for now?
-
What reliably brings you a sense of joy that feels deeper than temporary happiness? Consider the people, places, practices, music, movement, creativity, or small moments that make you feel most fully alive.
-
What is difficult in your life right now, and what is also beautiful? What might change if you allowed both things to be true at the same time?
At Kellie Box Company, we believe peace is a practice and begins with each of us. Whether it’s a journal for capturing your quiet thoughts, a beautiful mug and a few minutes to yourself to sip one of our comforting teas, or our signature Quiet Time Box, our thoughtfully curated items support rituals of quiet and care for yourself or someone you care for. Visit our store here and enjoy 25% off everything during our summer sale through September 21. Use code: Summer26.
0 comments