When You Can’t Laugh
What do you do when you can’t laugh?
My friend sat in the movie theater seat next to me, electric energy bouncing around inside of her. Honestly, I do not even remember the movie we all agreed upon seeing but I remember laughter. Lots of laughter between the women sitting down the row from me. Each of them a friend. Each of them enjoying a girl’s night out. The friend sitting directly next to me seemed the most energized. A night out. A night with lots of ladies she loves. A night of laughter.
I, on the other hand, had no desire to be there, beyond the fact that I felt obligated to show up. It is what I do. Or rather what I use to do…before the depression hit. I use to walk into rooms and light them up with one smile. I use to show up everywhere for everyone and fill the room with a steady quiet joy.
On this night, I struggled to show up. I struggled to smile. I especially struggled to laugh. Again, what do you do when you can’t laugh?
My friend, bouncing with energy, continued to try and pull me into the pre-movie conversation. She tried to loosen me up with jokes and then look at me with hopeful expectation. “C’mon Brooke, that was funny!” I could hear her eyes cry out to me.
Each time I gave a half-hearted smile. A silent breathy scoff through my nostrils. Then I’d sit back in the plushy chair and wait for the movie to start.
As the movie went on, the laughter down the line continued. It was a comedy, a romantic comedy. That much I remember. There I sat, an out-of-body experience, floating above myself watching everyone else laugh at all the same moments. My friend sitting next to me looking to see if I too was laughing. I was not laughing.
I remember thinking at that moment, “I wonder what’s wrong with me. I wonder why I can’t physically laugh anymore. It seems like she wants me to laugh. It seems like I’m supposed to laugh.”
Looking back, I now realize something deeper, physical, chemical, was happening inside of me. Something I could not control on my own. I needed help. It was not her fault.
Also, I realized my friend looking at me with each communal laugh, looked at me with hopeful expectation. She hoped I would return to my normal lighthearted self. She hoped I would be ok because I was not. She hoped she could help me somehow.
At that moment, I just got frustrated. Her expectation frustrated me because I could not explain what was wrong. Each look of hope from her turned into a moment of fear for me.
I wanted to scream at her, “Stop looking at me that way! I am not going to laugh. Nothing is funny anymore! Something is wrong with me.” However, deciding not to freak out the entire movie theater, I decided to sit silently. Dodging her expectant looks as much as possible.
I could feel a wedge driving between us with each laugh. A dividing line of misunderstanding. She hoped I would snap out of it. I hoped people just left me alone. I didn’t have the energy to fake laugh, or half-smile, or explain why I didn’t laugh.
The look of expectation felt suffocating.
Shortly after this girls’ night out, I found myself at my niece’s fourth birthday party. This held the magical moment of laughter I did not think existed for me anymore.
The princess bounce house wavered in the wind in the backyard. Family members mingled from kitchen to living room, to the back deck. I meandered out to the bounce house where the kids jumped. I felt unsure of what to do with myself or where to go or how to hold conversations with adults.
The kids. I could be whatever I wanted to be with the kids. My nephew and niece jumped full of laughter. Their laughter flowed with confidence. My oldest nephew bounced his way out and Ashtyn, the birthday girl, said, “Brookie come jump!”
I slide my shoes off and scooted inside. My being a grown adult in a midsize bounce house, I didn’t feel like simultaneously deflating the thing and her birthday dreams, so I sat. I helped her bounce higher. Her eyes looked at me without any expectation of laughter. Instead, her bright eyes looked to me with an invitation of laughter.
I could laugh if I wanted to but it did not determine the depth of her laughter. Either way, she was going to laugh loud and hard. The belly laugh that makes your ribs hurt.
Do you know what happened? The more I saw her cheeks swell and eyes close tight with genuine laughter, the more I started to laugh too.
My out-of-body experience drifted back to my body and I actually let loose an audible chuckle as she bounced higher. Present. In the moment. I laughed loud and fully.
“Again! Again, Brookie!” She bellowed with her bare feet flying in the air.
My cheeks swelled and my eyes grew wide with laughter. I did not want to miss a second of this magical moment.
Where I once feared something wrong with me, my niece helped me remember my laughter still lived inside of me.
What was the difference? Two moments. Two nights only a week apart. Two very different feelings towards letting out the joy inside. I recognize there are layers to be peeled back here. Also, perhaps…
If we understand laughter is best received as an invitation and not an expectation we create more space to laugh.
If we laugh with confidence it contagiously carries to the ones around us.
If we grow comfortable with the struggling laughers, they can grow comfortable with not being ok.
If they are ok with not being ok, maybe just maybe they’ll feel permission to laugh.
Permission granted.
You can laugh if you want to.
Or you can observe the laughter if you’d like.
All is well here.
All is well.
