“Even if there is nothing to laugh about, laugh on credit…”.
(Unknown)
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter…”.
(e.e. cummings)
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people…”.
(Victor Borge)
What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul…”.
(Yiddish Proverb)
Laughter gives us distance.
It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it, and then move on…”.
(Bob Newhart)
Remember, men need laughter sometimes more than food…”.
(Anna Fellows Johnston)
With the fearful strain that is on me night & day,
if i did not laugh, i should die…”.
(Abraham Lincoln)
Man, when You lose Your laugh,
You lose Your footing…”.
(Ken Kesey)
Seven days without laughter makes one weak…”.
(Mort Walker)
Laughter is an orgasm triggered by the intercourse of sense and nonsense…”.
(Unknown)
Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at…”.
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which
i guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis…”
(Jack Handey in Deep Thoughts)
A weird thing is happening to me: i’m laughing again and causing others to laugh. For much of my marriage, i neither laughed nor was funny. Jokingly, my wife used to tell me i was “funny…looking, that is…”. But, sadly, one of the things that drew her to me initially was my humor and laugh. As the years went by in our marriage with things that weren’t necessarily the fault of either of us, i began to laugh less and less. i slipped into a mild depression that deepened and worsened until i was in a terribly dark place…isolated & alone…and profoundly wounded. Additionally, i became suicidal (which is altogether different and separate from depression). For much of the last three years of my marriage, suicide seemed to me like the best of a handful of bad options. There are still several people who wish i had gone through with it….
But, now, as the marriage is officially over and i am divorced, i expected a certain set of responses: judgment, condemnation, ridicule, scorn, & condescension...loneliness, emptiness, & longing…diminished opportunities, a more singular capacity, & recalibrated hopes…and all of those have happened, for sure. However, i am surprised at one thing: i am laughing again.
It’s amazing to me to read what people say about laughter. From scripture to the village idiot, laughter is almost universally recognized as a healing balm, and maybe that’s why i’m so aware of it right now. God knows i need a lot of healing. Also, however, laughter reveals joy, which i have basically had none of in the last decade. i can’t remember the last time i was actually happy before my divorce. i know there was a time when i was married and happy (or at least i think there was), but i can’t remember it or recall any specific memories of being happy or, more substantively, actually having real joy — whether we’re talking about the state of “being married” or just having joy, in general.
For most of my Life, people have told me i was funny. Some of my friends have tried to convince me to try my hand at stand-up comedy from time to time. i like being called funny, because i like making people laugh, too, and also because comedy requires intelligence (which makes me feel intelligent — no word on whether or not that actually applies to me). In high school, i remember lots of people being attracted to me (not sexually, but in a more general manner) and telling me that they liked hanging around me or whatever, because i made them laugh. More than that, people would comment on what they perceived to be my almost innate sense of joy. Joy is more abiding than the fleetingness of happiness, but laughter betrays both. i know that, for much of my Life, i did indeed have real joy. i’m not sure when it left, but my counselor is helping me identify that. We are making real progress, and i think we have the time frame nailed down.
Now, at least for this current season, the focus has not been on recovering joy, but laughter — potentially as a harbinger, i am hoping — has already returned. i am enjoying Life again for the first time in years, and i am enjoying people again for the first time in years. Some people are bipolar and have to take medication. Some people are depressed or have high blood pressure or have suffered a stroke or whatever and have to have medication to prevent devastating events or keep them even or help them cope with the effects of something awful. Apparently, i have to be on laughter to keep me sane….
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