Who knew life would ever look as strange as it does now, huh? I’m about to get vulnerable here but I wanted to share with you the conclusion I have arrived at when it comes to finding joy amidst the chaos of today’s world. 

The world seems to have taken on a new weight. A sort of unsettling heaviness that seems to linger in every corner of our day-to-day lives. Some days, it’s world events—disasters, tragedies, things far beyond our control. Other days it’s the daily struggles that quietly seep into our routines, making everything just a little harder.

There are days when the weight feels heavier than I ever thought it could. The constant cycle of bad news, world crises, and heartbreak—it can feel overwhelming. But then, in the same breath, there’s something else: a sale, a new pair of jeans that everyone’s talking about, or a cute fall porch idea that pops up on social media. And don’t get me wrong, I love those little things. And normally, I’d be the first to share them with you without hesitating. But lately, I find myself at a loss, stuck between wanting to show up and share the light-hearted joys of life and feeling the heaviness of everything else. And that’s when things start to feel strange—like two worlds colliding in the most uncomfortable way. I find myself staring at my screen thinking, how am I supposed to care about throw pillows when the world feels like it’s on fire?

And that’s when it hit me. Maybe we’re all feeling this.

The collision of chaos and normalcy, the weight of what’s happening in the world and the need for something—anything—that feels light. Maybe you feel this way too?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’ve woken up to a lot over the years. I can’t even walk through a grocery store anymore without thinking the government is low-key trying to kill me. Like, hmm, should I buy the organic spinach or just lick the floor at the DMV? It feels like the same risk, honestly.

I used to stroll through aisles without a care, but now? Now I look at half the food on the shelves and think, how is this even legal? And let’s not forget the 2020-2022 era. It’s like that period of our history flipped a switch for so many of us and the wool was officially yanked off our eyes. It became painfully obvious that things weren’t going back to “normal”. Because now we see things for what they are. The toothpaste is out of the tube, folks, and there’s no shoving it back in.

Or perhaps it’s because I’m the parent of a child with special medical needs, a role that makes the fear of what could go wrong all too real. There’s always that quiet fear lingering in the background: Will I be able to get her what she needs? Will we have the resources? What if there is a shortage? Will the world remain stable enough for us to keep going? Or maybe it’s also the weight of empathy. I’ve always felt too much. As somewhat (okay, a lot) of an empath, the sorrow, the pain, the brokenness of the world often feel like my own, even when they have nothing to do with my life directly. If this is you, solidarity. It isn’t easy.

And it’s all bittersweet really. Because while it’s easy to feel frustrated or disheartened, there’s also this strange sense of empowerment in knowing the truth. Because now, we can do something about it. Now we can live differently, more intentionally.

So here we are, wide awake and trying to make sense of how to live in this strange, chaotic world. On one hand, we’re more aware than ever of everything that’s broken. And on the other? Life still goes on. We wake up, make breakfast, clean the house, go to work, and find ourselves slipping into those comforting routines that make the world feel somewhat normal again.

There’s such a strange disconnect between the two—between the brokenness of the world and the mundane of life. It’s hard to know how to show up in these times. How do we find the space to both mourn what is broken and still find joy in life and making it beautiful?

It feels messy. There’s no clean or easy answer. But here’s what I’ve been learning: maybe we can carry both.

What if part of being human is holding the tension between two realities—the weight of the world’s chaos and the sweet and reverent comfort of life’s small moments? Maybe it’s okay to feel joy in the midst of hard times. Maybe it’s okay to share the little things that still make us smile, whether it’s a cozy sweater, a new book, or the simplicity of a fall afternoon. These small joys aren’t a denial of the world’s pain; they are a reminder of our humanity, of the beauty that still exists amidst it all.

After all, there’s comfort in normalcy, isn’t there? Even when things are falling apart, the normal, everyday moments—the family dinners, time with friends, the mundane routines that remind us that life goes on, even when it feels like the sky is falling. Those moments are what keep us tethered, keep us grounded. They truly can be like an anchor in the storm. They remind us that we don’t have to have it all figured out to show up.

As I have wrestled with myself about all of this, I was reminded of a quote from C.S. Lewis in the 1940’s. This was a time when the bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the entire world was fearful of this atomic technology. C.S. Lewis was a professor and author who wrote an essay titled ‘On Living In An Atomic Age’:

“In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

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So here we are—doing our best to navigate the chaos and feeling all the feelings. It’s hard. It’s messy. It’s uncomfortable. There is no one right way to navigate these times that we find ourselves in. But maybe there’s grace in allowing ourselves to live in both realities. 

And maybe, just maybe, showing up in the midst of chaos doing human things—being kind, finding joy, making life beautiful, loving well, however imperfectly—is the bravest thing we can do.

All my love, friend.