Very Funny

Have you ever laughed so hard your stomach hurts? When you start tearing up, and your cheeks start burning and you feel like you just did 100 sit-ups? Of course you have…I think everyone has! I love that feeling, where you’re driving in your car, or standing on the El, or walking to lunch, and you start laughing at something that happened earlier that day, or even the day before. I always start with a smirk, and then have to put my hand over my mouth, or put my head down so people don’t think I’m a psychiatric patient laughing by myself. If you’ve ever caught someone going through this, it’s just as fun trying to watch them hide it as well.

For a long time after we lost the baby, I couldn’t laugh. Sure I put on a brave face, and went about my day. Everyone told me how very tough I was, couldn’t believe I went back to work so soon after, couldn’t believe I had picked up and moved on. But if someone could see into my mind they would have seen black. No future visions, no excitement. I would have bad days, but mostly I just felt numb, or just void of all feeling. Going to sleep or just laying in bed staring at the ceiling fan was turning into a new hobby.

The other day I was on Facebook and one of my friends made a comment about a photo that someone else had posted of her. It wasn’t a very flattering photo, to say the least, and she wanted them to take it down. I looked at the photo of her and I swear, I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life. The look on her face was priceless, and I should think if anyone had a similar photo up they’d go into freak-out mode as well. It made it worse by her commenting on it, so every one of her friends was then drawn to see how horribly bad this photo was. I called her up, and couldn’t even get the words out. I was laughing so hard sound didn’t even escape my lungs. She knew exactly what I was talking about and she started laughing even harder. We sat there for about 15 minutes just going back and forth with comments, and laughing even harder.

No, it’s not the funniest thing in the world, but it made me feel human again. I hadn’t laughed that hard in probably 6 months. Sure, I’ve had fun and laughed, but not that gut wrenching laugh, that only you and the person you’re laughing with find that hilariously funny. That other people would have seen us and been annoyed with us. I walked to lunch that day, and laughed (out loud) the whole entire way.

So thank you my friend, for the laughs.