the art of joie de vivre

I bet you’ve heard this expression before and I obviously have too. However, I never realized how important this practice was to me. It means “joy of living” and I love how wikipedia puts it: “is a French phrase often used in English to express a cheerful enjoyment of life, an exultation of spirit.”

I totally took that for granted, growing up. Simply because it was the normality. It was just life as I knew it and never wondered what it actually meant.

That was until I moved to the US. Everything I thought was a normal part of life was actually not, here. It took me a while to realize that. Over time, my joie de vivre was dissipating and floating away. Just waiting for me to catch it and bring it back into my life. Being away from family has been my biggest challenge; being away from people who practice joie de vivre on a daily basis. Living in a country that rewards hard work and hustling has challenged me in many ways. Trying to fit in but also nurturing the French in me has been a struggle. I sometimes feel like my heart is in two different places and it makes it difficult to feel whole everyday.

I realized over time that when joie de vivre is fading away, I need to be more intentional about making it an important part of my life.

That’s why I’ve been wanting to be more purposeful about being my authentic self here. One of my goals with Holy Fork is to feed and nurture that, and share it with other people.

I try to see it as an art that I need to practice. So let’s cheers to aperitifs, nice meals, movie nights, getting outside, laughing hard, and good conversations. Let’s also cheers to trying, doing our best and sharing that with our loved ones.