Joy Regardless

Joy arrived before the package did.

It lived in the sound of us racing down the steps, in somebody laughing too loudly and in the porch light turning the wet pavement gold. We had learned to recognize happiness in small forms because the world rarely delivered it whole.

The neighborhood had not suddenly become easier. Tomorrow still waited with its usual demands. But for one evening, we allowed ourselves to be young without apology.

We did not laugh because life had softened.

We laughed because it had failed to make us hard.

When the package finally reached the door, nobody rushed to open it. For a moment, we simply stood around it, smiling at the fact that something had crossed all that distance and found us.

Some things arrive in boxes.

Joy never needed one.