May is officially the month of Joy. I declare it. I’m even gonna change my name to Susie Wonder for the month, maybe forever. It just makes me happy. Do what makes you happy. This is our only chance to be alive as a human being with language, and with a voice… I learned this the hard way when brain surgery took my speaking voice for 4 months. I don’t want you to have to go through that just to learn that your voice is the instrument that makes the music of your life. Use it.
My forthcoming memoir, Fierce Joy is everything I know about bravery as a woman, a partner, a parent, a leader, an athlete, an activist, and a brainstem tumor survivor. My editors say it’s fast-paced and beautiful and funny. I say, don’t forget that it’s a love story. This is the memoir I’ve been working on in the pre-dawn darkness every day for the past two and half years. It’s about showing up real in life and at work and what gets in the way, namely perfectionism. It’s about love and death and living life to its fullest. It’s about choosing joy over fear and brave over perfect. It’s about looking underneath our fears to find unlimited joy. It’s about how our striving, saving, and performing to do things the “right” way is making it impossible for us to show up real. It’s about how Fear has become a main character in our lives, and a dangerous obstacle to real change.