Joy

Literature

• Joy (novel), a 1990 novel by Marsha Hunt
• Joy (novels), a series of novels by Joy Laurey
• Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (novel), a novel / partial autobiography by C.S. Lewis

Television

• “Joy” (House), a television episode
• Joy Turner, fictional character on the US sitcom My Name is Earl
• Nurse Joy, several characters in the Pokémon series

Places

• Joy, Illinois, United States
• Joy Range, Nunavut, Canada
• Mount Joy, the name of several places

Other uses

• Joy (dishwashing liquid)
• Joy (programming language)
• Joy 94.9, a radio station
• USS Joy, the name of more than one United States Navy ship
• USS Turner Joy (DD-951), a United States Navy destroyer in commission from 1959 to 1982

Joy may refer to:

• Happiness, an emotion

Regardless…

Joy has always been an emotion first and foremost for me.  It’s the feeling beyond happiness, beyond satisfaction, that starts in the pit of your stomach and overwhelms you.  For many years, making theatre brought me this kind of joy.

But somewhere along the way in Boston, I lost it.  I was living in this tiny apartment with windows that overlooked a brick wall.  I was broke.  I had a terrible job in foodservice and went home every day smelling of yeast.  In fact, I spent more hours making pastry than making theatre.  Things were not working out in the glamourous way that I thought they would, and there was no forseeable end to the downward spiral.

And then, Michelle called.  She was working in my old job at Silk Road Theatre Project, and the show they were doing was extending.  She needed someone to run wardrobe for two weeks until the new closing.  “Me!  Me me me!  Pick me!”  I said.  She was understandably startled.  I had been the production and facilities manager of the company when I left, quite a bit farther up the totem pole than wardrobe supervisor.  But I couldn’t stand my Boston life any longer.  Something needed to change.  This was it. I could feel it.

I was wrong.

I had a good time in Chicago.  The show was awesome, the cast amazed me night after night, and the audiences left satisfied.  But it didn’t bring my joy of theatre back.  I didn’t have the deep and swelling love of the stage that I had boasted before I left.  It was, in short, not the life-changing return that I hoped for.  I went home to Boston a little disappointed, a lot confused, and resolved that this would be my last show.  If it didnt’ bring me joy, then I was quitting theatre.  And I did.