Funny.
It’s good to be funny. Things are better with a joke. I thought I’d lost it; then it came back. Now I’m taking it all, humour in all things. A happy little basket in my hand and a bottom drawer for laughs. It is a matter of survival.
The return to it began in conversation with a dear friend, he reminded me just how good I am at laughing and what it has meant to us over the twenty fiveish years that we have been friends. The reason we got each other and could be comfortably vulnerable- giggling in little pub conferences as our lives took us in such different directions. I thanked him. Yes. I do like laughing- now where do I find it? He knew just how to help.
Then my favourite podcast Older and Wider came to my aid. Jenny and Judith reminded me what it is to find the funny in the everyday- two women whose weekly musings give a glimpse into the future- I look forward to discussing coleslaw while attending to my embroidery and peppering my frustrations with rude words- the devil-may-care years. I hope I’m blessed with those.
If you listen to Griefcast, you’ll know that Cariad Lloyd does an great job of getting to the really honestly human moments in grief- the comedy in the tragedy. I don’t think I’ve heard anything more poignant this year. Without really looking, there will always be a joke and making it will make everyone feel a little better- even for just a moment.
Having spent months steeped in nostalgia- trying to relocate myself, I found it was doing me no good. I took at step out in order to bravely face the jester who had been pinned down. Where had I hidden the little guffawing show off?
Then I found her.
It was my birthday. Once I had sated my need for Ferrero Rocher, my thought was to do whatever I could to make my day bearable; friends and family came to my aid. What I got instead was so much more; a symphony of care. And I laughed heartily.
If you’ve seen the bit in Amelie where she abducts the blind chap and speeds him through the streets describing what she sees and then leaves him alone, then you might remember the way he lights up when she takes off. It’s like he’s seeing. I think he probably managed to get home okay.
I feel better. The lights are coming on.
What this means is that I can watch all the comedy I like now, I revel in it- because I really need it. I am a joy evangelist. My advice to you, as trite as it may seem is to take the laughs and don’t just keep them for yourself- please share them out; because the lows are so grim. For all the life experience I’ve had, never had I felt so hollow, so destroyed by what had taken place. If I knew that my life with Seb was going to be cruelly truncated, I would have just wanted to spend even more my time with him laughing; because at the centre of it all, we were two friends who just really loved to laugh.