Would You Like 28 Days of Joy?

Hello !

One week from today, on August 18, I’m launching the Kickstarter for Diary of a Cockeyed Optimist! If you’ve been subscribed for a while, you know I’ve been working toward this for a loooong time, and now it’s almost here. Woohoo!

The date is intentional. It’s the sixth anniversary of the day I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I wanted the launch to mark that anniversary in a way that felt meaningful. So from August 18 through September 15, the length of the Kickstarter campaign, I’m also inviting you to join me for 28 Days of Joy.

If you’ve already followed the campaign and signed up for the emails, thank you! I’ll have a non-Kickstarter related story later this week.

So what is 28 Days of Joy? It’s simple! I’ll send you one short email every day with a quick prompt to help you find a little more joy in your life. Nothing complicated or time-consuming, just one small thing to notice, think about, remember, or do each day.

Diary of a Cockeyed Optimist grew out of the journals and essays I wrote while I was going through cancer treatment, but the Cockeyed Optimist actually began a few months earlier. In March 2020, when the pandemic effectively erased my travel-writing business overnight, I started writing about fear and frustration and anger and hope and silver linings and the thing I always say when something goes wrong:

Well, this sucks. Now, what can I DO?

COVID was bad enough, but then, in my personal world, it got worse. Months of appointments, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, uncertainty, bad news, good news, ridiculous medical experiences, gratitude, anger, fear, laughter, and a whole lot of waiting followed that gut-punch diagnosis.

I wrote through all of it.

And despite it all, I kept coming back to joy. Not happiness all the time, and definitely not pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t. I had days that sucked, and I said so. I was scared. I was angry. I cried. I worried. I also laughed, cooked, walked, watched birds, ate peanut M&Ms, appreciated the hell out of my husband, noticed kindness, and paid attention to the things that made me happy even when the larger picture was decidedly not. I wrote in April 2020 that expecting myself to be happy and optimistic all the time was unrealistic and frankly delusional. That became even more true in the following months, and I still agree with it.

That’s the idea behind 28 Days of Joy. This isn’t about forced positivity or pretending bad things aren’t happening. Joy can exist right alongside the icky stuff. Sometimes it’s something big. Sometimes it’s a really good meal, a song you forgot you loved, a bird doing something ridiculous outside your window, or the way the light hits the trees. Sometimes it’s simply paying attention long enough to notice that, in this particular moment, something feels good.

I wanted to do something to celebrate the people who are helping me bring Diary of a Cockeyed Optimist into the world, and inviting you to spend these 28 days looking for joy felt right.

Everyone who follows the Kickstarter campaign can sign up to receive the daily emails.

You do not have to pledge to participate, and there’s no purchase required. I’m not even going to ask you for a screenshot to prove you followed it. All you have to do is follow the campaign.

Simply click here, create an account if you don’t have one, and then click Notify me on launch. Once you’ve followed, look for the pinned update. That’s where you’ll find the information on how to give me the email address where you’d like to receive 28 Days of Joy. (Check the video below.)

In addition to the daily joy emails, I’ll be sharing some behind-the-scenes looks at the memoir and the Kickstarter, and I’m planning to share audio recordings of some of the journal entries that are forming the book.

It’s a little wild to realize the launch is only a week away. Diary of a Cockeyed Optimist is the most important thing I’ve ever written, and I’m genuinely happy that it’s finally almost time to bring it into the world. I’m grateful to everyone who has encouraged me, followed the campaign, shared it, read my work, and helped get me to this point.

And I’m joyful. Oh, so joyful!

So, what would happen if you focused on joy for 28 days? Let’s find out!

Here’s to a joy-filled life!

Much love,

Theresa

Follow Diary of a Cockeyed Optimist

Much love,

Theresa