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Kaylee doesn’t think that very many people know the difference between happiness and joy. People often describe her as happy- and she is- but she doesn’t like all of the assumptions that often come with being thought of as “bubbly.”
Kaylee wouldn’t really describe herself that way to be honest, even though she’s heard others use the term to describe her; it just carries too many connotations of stupidity or foolishness for her liking.
True, Kaylee is certainly happy, but she would much rather be thought of as joyful. Happiness is like a bubble: Bubbles are trivial, ephemeral things that have no weight to them, but joy is like… well, Kaylee doesn’t know quite what, but something more solid. Something that’s deep and full, but somehow manages to feel light. Like an ion thruster full of plasma.
Joy is the soul-deep satisfaction that Kaylee feels after a hard day at work on the engines, the pride she takes in having given new life to something with her own two, grease-covered hands.
Joy is seeing Zoe and Wash together and feeling a pang of longing for a love like that, but being unable to be jealous when you think about how much more your love for them means than any jealousy ever could.
Joy is taking vindictive pleasure in watching Jayne get his ass handed to him by a teenage girl who weighs 90 pounds soaking wet, then helping him clean his wounds while the Shepherd chuckles in the background quoting scripture at him about casting the first stone or some such thing.
Joy is sipping tea with Inara in her immaculate clothes while you are in ratty jeans and a t-shirt covered in oil and feeling comfortable in your own skin, anyways.
Joy is seeing River smile and act her age with you even though you know she’s dangerous and are far more afraid of her than anyone knows.
Joy is knowing that your captain trusts you with his ship, and that he respects you enough to ask for the impossible because he knows you can deliver.
Joy is kind of sort of maybe hating Simon just a little bit for all his fancy schmancy manners and his superiority complex and his stupid, perfect hair, and wanting to utterly wreck him in the unkempt, cramped, sanctuary of the engine room, anyways.
But most of all, joy is the way Kaylee feels when she sits down to dinner with the crew: whole and content.
That’s right, she’s content to be where she’s at, even though she knows most people wouldn’t consider her lifestyle ideal. After all, she’s seen the things that happen out here on the border and she’s seen her friends bloody and bruised trying to stop those things from happening one too many times. But that’s the secret to joy, she thinks- you have to be brave enough to give up the things that don’t matter in order to appreciate the things that do. And Kaylee supposes that’s the real difference between happiness and joy: one is a feeling and the other’s a choice.
Kaylee isn’t like a bubble, delicate and without weight, never concerned with being dragged down by the gravity of their situation. Kaylee’s much more like a rocket ship: it isn’t that she doesn’t feel the pull of gravity, but that she rises above it, anyways.