Joy and Dread: What Do We Do With Both?

Last night, I watched something I’ve been dreaming about for years — the Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA championship.

If you’ve followed this team the way I have, you know this wasn’t just a season win. It was years of building. Of heartbreak. Of patience. Of holding on when it felt like we were constantly resetting. And then… this year. This improbable, electric, heart-filling run. The city lit up. Strangers hugged. My group chats exploded. And for a few beautiful minutes, it felt like the world slowed down to let OKC have its moment.

But not long after, I opened my phone and felt the floor drop again.

The headlines: Iran. Retaliation. “We’re under attack.”

That’s the part I can’t shake today. This aching, dissonant place between joy and fear.

How do I celebrate a title I’ve waited years for when I know people are dying? How do I ride the wave of fandom when the world feels like it’s inching toward another disaster — one that puts real lives, maybe even our own, in jeopardy?

It’s the weird duality of being alive right now. You sit with the joy of something deeply personal, like watching your team win it all, while also feeling the creeping weight of geopolitical chaos. It doesn’t cancel out the joy — but it does make it feel smaller. Or maybe more fragile.

Part of me wants to shut the news off, to give myself this win. I want to be just a fan today. I want to wear the jersey, repost the memes, and let myself feel the full pride of watching a group of young guys bring it home for a city that never gave up on them. And maybe I will. Maybe I need to.

But I also feel the need to name this conflict — to admit that celebration isn’t simple for me right now. That part of loving people, of being aware, is that you can’t detach entirely. That I can't separate what’s happening overseas from what it could mean for the people I love, for the direction our country is heading, or even for how fragile this moment of peace in my own life really is.

So I’m holding both.

I’m grateful for the Thunder. For the community that’s formed around this team. For the emotional release that sports give us. They remind us what it’s like to hope and believe and scream and cheer and care with our whole chest.

But I’m also not okay. I’m scared. I’m watching the news with heavy eyes. I’m wondering how we keep holding joy in one hand and dread in the other without letting either swallow us.

If you feel it too — the guilt, the joy, the ache of celebration tempered by fear — just know you’re not alone. You’re not broken for feeling both.

This is what it means to care in 2025.

And maybe that’s what makes the win matter even more. Not less. Because even in a world on fire, we still found a reason to believe in something together.