I have told this story before. I will always be telling this story.
I used to attend a weekly Al-Anon meeting—a program of support for the family, friends, and partners of addicts. It was held in the atrium of a church out by the beach in San Francisco and every week there was a huge circle of chairs set up, sometimes a double circle if the group was larger than usual.
I wasn’t entirely sure why I was there. I had ended the relationship that caused me to seek out the group—not because I wanted to, but because it felt like the only way to keep my sanity.
My friends didn’t understand either. “You’re not together anymore, why are you still going to that group?” they wanted to know.
I had a hard time explaining, even to myself. All I knew is there was something there for me that felt important. I saw so much of myself in the other people, I loved hearing their stories.
In every group there were people who had been in the program for years—decades, even. When they told their stories, they laughed—genuinely and with humor. They could look back on their own pain and be amused by it. That seemed wondrous to me.
I loved the lightness I could feel in them; I knew it was hard won.
In every group there were people in crisis—often first-time attendees. They showed up in pain and despair. Their person—a spouse, child, friend, or parent—was in active addiction, with all the horrors that come with it. They were desperate to find answers, healing, some way forward, an end to the pain.
I remember one woman specifically. Her child was on drugs again and she didn’t know where they were—on the streets, in jail, dead. You could see the fear and anguish mapped on her face.
It was a common story. But for each person who told it, it was a fresh hell.
Then the woman said something I will never forget.
As she left the house that morning, she told us, she’d seen sunlight filtering through the leaves of a tree. It had been so beautiful, she made herself stop. She realized that moment might be the best moment of her day. It might be the best moment of her week or even month. She stopped to breathe and take it in, to appreciate this loveliness.
In the midst of one of her darkest days, she stopped to take in beauty.
I never saw that woman again, but I think of her lesson often—to appreciate what is good in the midst of pain, in the midst of fear, in the midst of whatever hard and horrible thing you might be going through.
There is so much we cannot control, so much that can feel like chaos in this life.
But this is within our power—we can stop and notice what is beautiful, what is good, what makes a moment rich and worthwhile. And we can gather them up like shells on a beach, we can be collectors of loveliness; we can appreciate them for the treasure they are.
Even on the hardest day.
This is why I am starting this experiment, this site, enJOY. Because I need the reminder, and maybe you do too.
Stop for a moment to appreciate sunlight through the leaves.
Whatever else happens, I feel certain you’ll be glad that you did.
**Because Al-Anon is an anonymous program, I have disguised details of this story in order to protect identities; the lesson remains unchanged.