Laughter is the best medicine

I had actually written another blog yesterday about how it feels so weird to know I’ve been graduated from high school for 20 years. It was filled with sweet heartfelt stories about my former classmates and how we had this really great connection because they all knew the real me and where I came from…

I need to finish that one up because it had some good stuff in it, but I just don’t feel like I have the energy today to bring up serious emotions or reflect on the happy times of my youth.

Today was one of those days where life is almost so exhausting that I have to really push myself to take care of business. I took the day off work so my daughter could go ride horses—that was a high point of the day. I love to see my children truly happy and she is happiest when she is on a horse out in the county.

Then on the way home, reality began to sink in as I remembered why I took off the rest of the day—to take care of business.

I knew I had to call my attorney (again) and try to get a grip on a recent issue that has dinged my credit. After over an hour of phone calls, I realized it was going to be harder than I thought and this is going to take me weeks to file all the paperwork and make phone calls and once again fight to be treated with respect and dignity. *

The exhaustion that stress brings on began to settle on my body—I felt tired and my face felt old and wrinkled from scrunching up my face. I wanted to just go to bed and forget about everything I had to do to get this stuff resolved.

I also had to make more phone calls to push off my student loans a little longer and re-file paperwork so my children don’t lose their health insurance. I have more bills to pay and I don’t want to even start going through the stack of mail that continues to grow on the coffee table.

Then I started to think about how happy it made me yesterday to think about the funny stories I shared with my former classmates back in Dublin, Texas. Those memories make me laugh every time.

I think about all the crazy parties I used to throw when my parents would go out of town—which happened a lot. We floated kegs, invented some awesome drinking games, and laughed a lot—we actually laughed all the time.

One of the things that I love so much about Robby is that we laugh a lot. I forgot how much I missed 

laughing until I met him. We laughed so much on our second date that I wanted to just stay in the car and keeping driving around talking for a few more days.

I love to laugh like that. When I laugh like that, I forget about how crappy my day was or how tired I am from stress. I forget that there is unfinished business looming or that I don’t have any money.

I grew up very poor. Most of the people I went to school with in Dublin were also very poor. I don’t think any of us realized how poor we were—we didn’t care. It didn’t matter if you were poor and lived in Dublin because it was expected that you had to be poor or else you wouldn’t live there.  

It’s easy to not focus on the negative parts of life when you are surrounded by people who make you laugh—people who understand you and accept you just the way you are.

I was fortunate to have that experience in school—most people I know hated their classmates and vow to never go back to their hometown ever again. I used to hate Dublin and I hated going back there until a few years ago.

I finally realized that I couldn’t pretend to be someone else when I went back home—everyone knew where I came from and that I wasn’t any better than any of them. I couldn’t pretend that I was from somewhere else.

I wish I had the money to go back home and see my old friends for our class reunion. I’m sure we would laugh a lot. I’m sure I would forget about all the bad stuff for a few days and catch my breath. I would love for them to meet Robby and see my children.

I’m glad I have those memories. I’m glad I still have those friends. I’m glad I have new friends that make me laugh. I’m glad I can still laugh after everything I have been through these past years.

I guess I’ll know things are really bad if there ever comes a day when I cannot laugh. But for now, I’m going to wrap this up and wait for my husband to get home so I can tell him a funny story I’ve been saving up all day.

I’m sure he’ll have another one for me and we’ll laugh for a while and I’ll forget about the bad stuff and find the energy to keep moving forward and living my life the way I was meant to live.

*When you get a divorce, have a credit company run through your credit history and make sure you don’t have any joint accounts with your ex—there may be an old credit card on file that you haven’t used since 2001 and you forgot about. I called all the banks and asked them to check on my old joint accounts, but one of them told me the wrong information and now I’m totally screwed with an unpaid credit card bill that I had nothing to do with. A credit check would have solved that issue instantly. Don’t let yourself be too exhausted to take care of this before you sign your divorce papers.