laugh

Laughing.  We all do it.  We should probably do it more.  Most of my life has been spent doing it or trying to get people around me to do it.  I am the clown in my family for just that reason.  To hear people laugh.

Life is serious, it's a struggle at times and sometimes things happening to you can bring you down so low you don't see any way up.  If you have lived on the planet for any length of time, you know what I mean.  I have lost my laughter at times because of things going on in my life, but realized later it was never lost, just misplaced, put aside while drama took over. 

Drama.  I hate drama.  That is the other side of the coin I carry.    I tend to want to escape when useless tears start.  (You know the kind I am talking about.  The kind that says "look at me I am being dramatic here.")  My mum and sisters, and in fact most of the family, will tell you I am not weepy and when someone starts to go dramatic on me I tend to tell them seriously to STOP THAT SHIT.  It is because drama to me is a waste of energy that could be spent laughing.  Drama brings me down and makes me feel like I am carrying a heavy weight on my shoulders.  I know there are sometimes when drama is legitimate.  Like I said, I've been there, when life was so serious, there was no light at the end of the tunnel, and in fact finding that tunnel was an impossibility.

Years ago I found my mantra.  It came to me during one of those no tunnel times, when I just didn't see any way up.  I had chewed on the thing bothering me for a while, and suddenly I heard a little voice in my head saying:

THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

And BINGO!  A light came on for me.  I realized that no matter how bad things looked or got, sooner or later it passes.  It may not resolve the way I want it to, but it will pass, because life is fluid, like a stream.  It continues to flow no matter what.  In the past several years, that mantra has saved my life and mental well being several times.  It enabled me to get past the moment.  Living in the moment is important, but when that moment is hard, it is difficult to appreciate what lessons you may be learning by being alive in that moment.  I think perhaps the most important lesson I have learned is to...

...laugh.  As much as you can as often as you can.  It is what sustains you through the drama.  It is a sharing thing...there is nothing so intimate as a shared laugh, something only you and the other person understand and appreciate.  My family is blessed with laughers and laughter.  Personally I think it comes from my dad on down the line...I don't remember ever seeing my dad on a day when he couldn't laugh.  Even on the day he told me he was dying, we spent some time laughing.  It was just who he was.  My mum and dad passed a warped sense of humor to my sisters and me...I have seen it manifest in our kids, and I am watching the grandkids to see who shows that sense of humor first...

So I guess the whole point of this rambling little blog entry today is to laugh.  As often as you can and as much as you can.  It will sustain you through the drama.

my new teeth

So laugh...go ahead...I dare you.