I memorized this for a storytelling show at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, May 26, 2022, You're Being Ridiculous, "JOY!" show. Hopefully there will be a podcast with audio of my performance.
You wanna know what joy feels like? Well, there’s accomplishment joy, “realizing self-worth” joy, contentment joy, pride joy, orgasm joy (jouissance), and of course, one of my personal favorites: petty joy. (Oooh, baby, it’s just great watching other people suffer, amirite?) But of all the kinds of joy that I’ve experienced, “belonging joy” may be the most meaningful.
So, what does joy feel like to me? Try actual inclusion—beyond tokenism—in a hometown where you’ve never belonged.
I’m an autistic, gay, white, and middle-class man, which means that North Shore suburban Chicago, where I grew up, was a site of both incredible privilege in terms of race, class, and gender and many years where I was treated like garbage. I recognize now that I was very lucky to have grown up in—ahem—Wilmette, Illinois, in a safe neighborhood with lush lawns and McMansions and Volvos aplenty, but that doesn’t mean that what I went through coming of age there as disabled and queer was easy.