Have you ever been in the middle of an extremely stressful situation and just started laughing?  It has happened several times for me this week.  It is funny to me how a person can go from one extreme emotion to the next and when it ends in laughter can feel so peacefully calm after.  What is it about laughter?

This weekend I went to a pool party.  Social situations stress me, especially if I know I have to wear a bathing suit, but I have really learned a lot about just trying to enjoy myself and relax.  Well I was twisted in so many anxious knots I am surprised I didn’t resemble a pretzel in some way.  I enjoyed a few drinks of some delicious punch which I found out had some Everclear,  no worries though, I had some food and decided to swim.  While I was swimming a huge leaf attacked my leg.  After a small scream I fished it out and very seriously said, “Oh look, I found Adams bathing suit!”  Well, I proceeded to laugh hysterically at my joke while everyone just looked at me like I was from another planet.  The point is, all that nervous laughter felt really good despite how ridiculous I may have seemed.

The next bout of laughter came because of an event that occurred that next morning about 3:30am.  A plastic strip that rounds the corners of our bedroom ceiling decided to fall onto our sleeping faces.  I probably would have slept through this except I woke up to my husband screaming.  His screaming scared me enough to make me scream.  Once we figured out what happened we fell back off to sleep.  The next morning however just remembering each other’s screams threw us into an uncontrollable bout of laughter.

The most recent hilarity happened when my daughter got in trouble for back talking.  She rarely gets in trouble because normally she is very respectful and mature.  However, she got in trouble and it turned into a huge ordeal where she very dramatically cried loud enough for the neighbors to hear.  I ignored her for a small bit before telling her that she was probably over doing it.  My husband and friend who witnessed her dramatic emotional display started to laugh.  They all too quickly pointed out that she definitely got the dramatic flair from me.  I feigned anger before succumbing to the laughter myself.

Laughter has the capability of fixing things temporarily, making the air feel lighter, making our moods more receptive to input.  The problem with the nature of laughter though….it takes a spark and sometimes everything is just too wet to start a fire.