While running errands today I caught up on the phone with a good friend that I’ve written about before who is going through what she calls the “death of her marriage” and the “death of the idea of what her marriage was” etc. etc. etc.  It’s a hard time for her right now and yet, she is plugging through going to support meetings, talking in therapy, showing up for her children and her life.  Doing that grown up thing that we call slugging through life even when it is the last thing that you really want to do.

And yet, as a fellow non-published, non-acted out officially comedy writer, she and I can dive right into the dark, dark humor of the situation. In fact, she will be sharing some of these realizations in a public venue but I can’t say more than that to keep her anonymity.  I’m so glad that she and I have found this laughing place to go to with each other when either or both of us are experiencing another freaking growth opportunity.  Laughing just helps to soften the edges of reality.

Earlier this week, I was sharing with another similarly-minded friend my sheer terror at having to do a presentation about the model that I had been working on all semester in the class straight out of Dante’s inferno! Even now as I type these words sometimes I hit the wrong key because the index and middle finger of my left hand are bandaged from having been cut when I was working with the exact o knife.  Turns out my tendency to smudge and muck up an otherwise pristine canvas is still alive and well.  I remember having so much embarrassment over always seeming to have smudged papers to turn in when I was in elementary school and yet,  there I was last week many decades older and smudging droplets of blood all over my last foam core board without realizing it.  Anyway, talking with my friend and laughing over my project board helped me buoy up the courage to carry on through with the presentation to the very end. Trust me, I’m a hit-the-road kind of gal from way back and so just being willing to show up for two hours when all the other fantastic boards were being displayed and it was obvious, bless my heart, that I am definitely differently challenged in this particular area of life.  We laughed at the fact that there’s a whole lot of people who will tell you that “their paper, project, art work is not really that good”  so that you will be AMAZED when you see how really great it is, but when I tell you that mine wasn’t, I really, really mean it!!  It helped to laugh. Kind of feels as if you hit your spiritual funny bone.

When we can laugh when it hurts with friends it helps the medicine of our learning go down better somehow.  I choked in mid-laugh a couple of times this afternoon while listening to my friend.  And if you’re like us, once you get someone laughing heartily at your predicament, then you’ll dig in the closet of your psyche til you find even more heart rending baring truths to share if it will bring you another hearty laugh. It must seem really sick to you if you are not made this way, but for those of us who are…it is such a great release.

So it’s kind of weird probably for me to pull this analogy up to end this blog with (but welcome to my mind!) — laughing when life is throwing really tough lessons at you faster than you can process makes you feel like you’re Ellen Ripley showing up for life with buff biceps and a big gun (Alien movie reference) screaming at life to bring it on!

Now look inside and find someone you can make laugh!