Finding Joy in the Mess (Without Summoning Demons)

The house is a wreck.

Boxes still half-packed, half-unpacked.

Laundry multiplying like it has a personal grudge against me.

The boys are here all week, which is wonderful, chaotic, and exhausting in ways only a mother knows. Craig and I are moving through each day bone-tired. The house isn’t finished, the walls still echo with the kind of incompletion that makes it hard to rest.

And yet… there’s laughter.

There has to be.

Because here’s the truth: if I don’t laugh, the demons move in.

I’m not talking about cartoon demons with pitchforks. I mean the everyday kind. The ones that thrive in low-frequency emotions. The resentment. The anger. The tiny sharp edge of bitterness when you trip over the same damn shoebox you asked someone to move three times. The invisible weight that slides in when the to-do list is too long and the body is too tired.

Those little doorways of exhaustion and irritation, if I let myself stay there, they swing wide open. And I’ve lived long enough, I’ve studied enough, I’ve written enough to know: demons love doorways.

So I laugh. Not because life isn’t hard right now, but because laughter is a lock.

I used to think joy was a luxury. Something you earn once all the boxes are unpacked, the bills are paid, the house is clean, the schedule runs smoothly. Joy was for later. For after. For when everything lined up just right.

But life doesn’t work that way. Chaos doesn’t pause. Boxes multiply. Children grow. Partners get tired. There is never a perfect moment for joy to arrive and make herself comfortable.

If you don’t invite her in now, she won’t come later.

And if you don’t invite joy in, something else will come instead.

That’s the trick no one tells you.

Everyday demons aren’t picky. They’ll take whatever scraps you give them. A little bitterness here, a little stress there. Leave the door cracked, and suddenly you’re sitting in a house full of resentment, wondering why you’re short with the people you love.

So I don’t wait for the mess to be over. I laugh in it. I play in it. I make coffee in the middle of boxes, and I sit down in the wreckage of what’s undone, and I let myself feel alive anyway.

Because that’s the real rebellion.

This week, I’ve been watching myself on the edge. One more broken lamp, one more door that shuts too loud, just because, one more sleepless night and I could slide into frustration so fast.

But instead of snapping, I catch myself. I breathe. I make a stupid joke. I let the boys’ laughter flood the room. I let Craig’s tired grin remind me that we’re still in this together.

And something shifts.

The demons go hungry.

Here’s what I know, laughter isn’t surface-level. It’s survival. It’s spiritual. It’s the sound that keeps the shadows out.

When you laugh, you tell your nervous system: I am safe.

When you laugh, you tell your spirit: I choose light.

When you laugh, you slam the door on whatever was scratching at the frame.

That doesn’t mean the boxes vanish. It doesn’t mean you suddenly have energy you didn’t have before. It doesn’t mean the house finishes itself while you sip tea on the porch.

It means you don’t let chaos have the last word.

I’m learning that joy is not neat. Joy doesn’t wait for the room to be clean. Joy barges in with muddy shoes, plops down on the couch, and dares you to join her.

Joy is messy.

She’s loud.

She doesn’t care that the dishes aren’t done.

She doesn’t care that your hair hasn’t been washed in three days.

Joy just wants to be let in.

And if you can laugh when the boys are fighting over Legos, if you can smile when the box splits open and spills its guts across the floor, if you can take one exhausted breath and still see beauty in the chaos, then you’ve already won.

Because demons hate that.

I don’t think we give joy enough credit. We treat her like dessert. Optional. Nice, but not necessary.

But what if joy is the medicine?

What if joy is the shield?

What if joy is the prayer?

That’s how I’ve been seeing it. Every laugh is a prayer. Every smile is an exorcism. Every moment of lightness is a declaration: not today. Not in this house. Not in my body.

The boxes can stay. The exhaustion can stay. The demons? They don’t get in.

I think of Everyday Demons, the book I’ve been carving out of years of watching how trauma leaves cracks in us. How anger, shame, resentment, and despair become entry points. We don’t always notice it happening, but the low-frequency emotions we sit in are open invitations.

That’s where the demons get in.

They don’t need rituals or candles; they just need you to stew in bitterness long enough. And the only thing I’ve ever seen that slams the door shut faster than anything else? Laughter. Joy. Play.

Those aren’t distractions. They’re protection. They’re armor.

Laughter is prayer too,

It doesn’t always have to be serious. God doesn’t need you on your knees in candlelight for your prayer to count. Sometimes the prayer is coffee and a smirk. Sometimes it’s belly laughter until tears roll down your face. Sometimes it’s the ridiculous dance you do in the kitchen because if you don’t move your body, you’ll collapse into the weight of everything unfinished.

Yes, that’s prayer, too.

Laughter is a faster prayer than anger ever will be.

So today, I’m writing this to remind myself and maybe you too, that we get to choose.

We don’t always get to choose the mess. The exhaustion. The boys bouncing off the walls. The unpacked boxes. The unfinished house. The life that feels like it’s bursting at the seams.

But we do get to choose how we meet it.

We can open the door to demons, or we can open the door to joy.

And joy doesn’t need everything to be perfect. She just needs a crack in the armor. She just needs a second where you breathe and let her in.

That’s all.

So, if you’re reading this in the middle of your own mess. Your dishes piled high, your inbox overflowing, your body bone-tired, try this:

Stop.

Breathe.

Find one ridiculous thing to laugh at.

Invite joy into the room, even if it’s just for five minutes.

You might be surprised how much it shifts.

You might realize the demons don’t stand a chance when you’re laughing.

Because joy is louder.

And laughter is holy.

And mess is not the enemy, losing your joy is.

So, tell me, how are you keeping the doors closed this week? Where are you choosing joy instead of letting frustration slip in? Drop it in the comments. I want to hear your version of slamming the door on those everyday demons.

As always loving you from here,

Rene Schooler

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This post was previously published on medium.com.