I am so thankful for laughter.
Today I couldn’t remember what I did last year on Halloween, and it was bothering me, so I opened my old journal to figure it out. As I flipped through the pages on which the days of last fall were recorded, some entries caught my eye.
On October 27, 2009, I wrote, “I miss laughing. I feel like I barely remember how to laugh, laugh for real, from inside. I can’t stand this.” I remember telling a friend around that time, “Lately whenever I laugh, it’s because I think I should be laughing… but I don’t actually feel like it, and it’s just on the surface, not deep like laughter should be.”
This time last year, I was feeling “uprooted,
confused,
contradicting,
distracted,
off… desperate for affirmation,
friendship,
closure,
certainty.”
“Nothing, or not much, is really that bad right now, but this crazy detached sporadic feeling I’ve got is making me insane!!!”
Life didn’t feel like a continuation anymore, but rather a series of disassociated 24-hour periods having no succession or predictability. Things in my life were amazing one day and horrid the next, and it was all out of my control.
But now, a year later…
A day doesn’t go by without good, hearty laughter—or without thoughtful, intelligent conversations. Life is unpredictable, to be sure, but not in the disconcerting roller-coaster way of my senior year. There is a flow. In the words of Lucy Maude Montgomery,
Then, suddenly, everything seemed to fall into focus—[Moody], professors, classes, students, studies, social doings. Life became homogeneous again, instead of being made up of detached fragments.”
Now I’m feeling at home
content
stable
focused (mostly)
happy… in possession of affirmation
friendship
peace
faith.
Do I have closure? Not on everything I wanted to, no. But the lack of it doesn’t gnaw at me like it used to.
Do I have certainty? Absolutely not. Most things right now are uncertain (though I do revel in the structure of college life). But that’s okay. God will lead me as He will, and I trust it’ll be a good way. And anyhow, the uncertainty I was referring to in my journal was not the uncertainty of future. It was the uncertainty of relationships and knowing where I stood with people, as well as the uncertainty of making the right college choice. As for college, I am most incontestably in the right place, and for the most part I know where I stand with people.
It is far too easy sometimes to forget to thank God for where He’s brought us. That’s one reason that I journal. So that on days like today, I can remember how I was feeling not so long ago and see how God has worked in my life to change things. I can remember the days I was hopeless, and see how things worked out- for good. I can remember the prayers I prayed and sometimes see the answers.
And I can remember just how much a simple thing like genuinely laughing can mean to me.
Last Halloween (and I can’t believe that I forgot, but the mind does funny things on sleep-deprived Fridays) I spent the evening with good friends… and here’s the best part: “I laughed so much tonight, from deep inside. I needed that so badly.”
Thank You, Lord, for creating laughter… and for allowing it to be part of my daily life right now.
