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Oh, the Hilarity!
How writing humor helps me heal
It’s harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. People are always on the verge of tears. — Fran Lebowitz
There are few things in this life I love more than laughter and hilarity. From belly laughs and chuckles to guffaws, snorts, and giggles, I am typically a connoisseuse of laughter in all its forms.
For most of the past year, however, I lost the ability to laugh with wild abandon or, indeed, much at all. This wasn’t the first time my funny bone went missing, and likely won’t be the last. A major bout with depression robbed me of humor and delight in one fell swoop and laughing felt like an insurmountable, brutal effort — like forcing air out of lungs gone flat and cold. Instead, I would say “That’s funny”, and force a smile whenever social etiquette called for a response.
The dull, humorless woman who stared back at me from the mirror was not me. I lost myself and didn’t know how to come back from the living dead.
And then one day, when I was sufficiently recovered, I went on a treasure hunt of sorts. I decided to look for humor in the everyday and to find mirth in the mundane.
