Are you asking yourself to wait for joy?

About two years ago, my body changed (as bodies do) and my engagement and wedding rings no longer fit.

I knew it didn’t make sense to get my rings resized right away, so I tucked them away and bought myself a cheap placeholder ring at Target.

I wore that placeholder ring for two years. 

I wore it long after it lost its fake shiny luster and started changing colors. I wore it long after I knew that the fluctuations in my body had reasonably settled.

I’d love to tell you that I don’t know why I waited so long to get my rings resized and kept settling for a $15 Target ring, but that’s not true.

The truth is that I know there was a part of me that still thought I might go back to my “before” body (oh, diet culture, you are such an asshole).

I also know there was a part of me that thought, “Maybe you shouldn’t spend the money now, because you might need to have it resized again, so better to wait.” 

And then—thank goodness—I finally got wise to my own game and to all the stories I was telling myself.

I finally owned that I deserve to be happy RIGHT NOW, in THIS moment, in THIS body that I’m in, even it changes tomorrow and even it means that I’m paying the jeweler $275 again in two months.

When I slipped the rings back on my finger at the jeweler’s yesterday, my heart leapt with such joy.

It leapt at the returned familiarity of the rings’ presence on my hand. It leapt at being re-fascinated with all the sparkliness and beauty. It leapt when I rushed to show my husband the rings on my finger when I came home.

And it leapt because I knew I had chosen joy for myself, right now, just as I am. No more stories. No more waiting.

What stories are you telling yourself about why you have to wait for joy? How can you give yourself some of that joy today?