I Believe in Laughter

I believe in laughter. It can change a bad mood to a good mood, dry up sad tears and create happy ones. Laughter is the cheapest form of entertainment. It can be found anywhere, anytime. It gives me the ability to look at something completely natural and be entertained for hours. Laughter distracts me from things I don’t understand or things that upset me. Laughter creates good memories, which will never change even when everything else does. I believe in laughter because it makes my time worthwhile and allows me to look at life’s gifts in a positive way. Laughter lets me appreciate the little things, allowing happiness to come from the most unexpected places.

While I was at the funeral of my elderly neighbor and lifelong friend, I couldn’t help but to start balling. I started to miss her so much. Then they began reminiscing on her life. She was quite a lady and after remembering all our conversations and her stories I couldn’t help but start to chuckle. I remembered all the crazy stories she had told me from her young days, or how we had swam in her pool every summer since as long as I could remember, yet she never got in. I remembered how she would always offer my parents a glass of wine or a beer. Even at such an older age she was ready to live her life as if she was still 30. Suddenly, I went from being sorrowful and upset to being thankful that I was lucky enough to have such a person influence my life. It was amazing to me how a little bit of laughter could bring such an optimistic emotion to me.

My memories always include laughter. Fun times are something I want to remember. Laughter even gives me the ability to look back at something and see it differently than when it happened.

My brother and I are only two and a half years apart, so inevitably as children we fought. Looking back though it was about the little insignificant things, although at the time these things meant everything. During Christmas time we have an advent calendar. There is a little mouse in the pocket that we take turns moving once a day until Christmas. I remember having the biggest, most unnecessary argument on who would move the mouse on December 1st, because whoever did it then would also get to do it on Christmas Day, which was apparently a pretty big deal. Years later, flipping through my old diary I read my entry from this day expressing my anger, frustration and sorrow that I was not going to get to move the mouse on Christmas Day. I began to laugh. Laughter gives me the ability to remember a bad situation at the time as funny now, allowing certain memories I would remember as negative to be happy. Making my life overall a much happier memory. I believe in laughter, it creates miracles.