Last weekend, Trish and I drove to the Jersey shore to help her brother put together furnishings for his new shore property.  It was going to be a “work” visit—we weren’t heading out on vacation.  However, the two hour drive there was a lot of fun because we laughed the whole way.  I think what I love more than anything else about Trish is that she always makes me laugh.  In fact, she put it in her wedding vows.  She committed to giving me a good belly laugh every day.  Five years in, so far so good.

We talked during that drive about using “laughter” as my “L” word because it is so important in our lives.  As I’ve thought about it more, I realize how important laughter is in ALL of our lives and within almost all of our relationships—certainly within any close relationship.  Trish and I have a very similar sense of humor, meaning that we find the same subjects and word plays funny.  We build off each other’s comments and the more we build, the more we laugh since that back-and-forth is funny in and of itself.  That’s why the famous Abbott and Costello skit “Who’s on First” is so funny (at least to me).  The individual jokes are good, but when you put them in a rapid fire back-and-forth it’s irresistible.  To this day, if someone says “I don’t know” I can’t resist saying “third base.”  (I just invested the 8 minutes watching the full clip that I linked to above.  Treat yourself and do the same.)

It’s not just Trish that cracks me up.  Her whole family does.  They are all born story tellers.  I learned early on to restrict fluids before family gatherings. I spend so much of the time together doubled over in laughter I risk peeing my pants!  What a gift!  And it’s not just story telling.  Even every day exchanges become comedy routines.  Here is an actual text exchange from Saturday.  We were invited over to her cousin’s house for a get-together Sunday:

Trish:  Hi Coll.  Are we lounging by the pool tomorrow—should we bring suits?  Just asking…

Coll: Yea you can bring your string bikinis!

Trish:  I only have tops…

Coll:  That’s fine—it’s just good clean fun!

Every family text exchange is like this one!  I can’t keep up!  I’m just not that quick.  But I laugh a good belly laugh every day.

People who have known me for a long time tell me I’ve never looked happier or more relaxed.  Yes, being in a healthy relationship is a big part of that but it’s the fact that so many of my relationships are filled with laughter.  We all know how important laughter is physiologically and mentally.  Laughing floods your system with endorphins, crowding out that stressed-produced cortisol and lowering your blood pressure.  It lightens you up.  In fact, just curling up the corners of your mouth into a smile and letting your eyes crinkle with them often has the same effect.  I find that if I just start a little smile, I begin to think of things that DO make me smile and then that artificial smile becomes real.  (You just tried it, didn’t you?  You’re welcome.)

A lot of people who know me think that I’m a very serious person.  In many ways, I guess I am.  I generally had to be very serious at work (if I wanted to be taken seriously) and I like to think Deep Thoughts.  And, yeah, I tend toward a bit of nerdy science humor.  I’ve always loved The Far Side scientist cartoons and Trish has promised to slap me the next time she asks “What’s new?” and I respond “E over h.”  (A little PChem humor.  Very little.)  Trish is often pushing me to be “funnier” in these essays.  Honestly, I do try!  But writing is a very serious thing for me.  Even when writing about laughter I have trouble lightening up!  But those who know me deeply know that I really like to laugh.

No one knows that better than my best friend.  Beth and I have been best friends since we met my second year of grad school (that would be almost 40 years ago now).  We have been through a lot of life together, good and bad.  One of the things that makes our friendship so lasting is that we are the queens of the inside joke.  We can just say one word or short phrase to each other and we dissolve in laughter.  (“Capodimonte!” “He had plans.” “Five minutes away!” “Pez dispenser.”  I could go on.)  What makes these lines funny are the memories they evoke.  We could even try to explain some of these jokes to you, but you’d probably just look at us blankly while we doubled over in laughter.  We are the epitome of “you just had to be there”.  Those memories, that laughter, bonds us even tighter than the tough times we’ve navigated together.  I never want to stop making memories with her and with a birthday trip to New Orleans coming up, I’m sure we won’t.  (Here’s a great SNL clip from just before Philly beat New England in the Super Bowl.  It’s for people who are from Philly and/or football fans.  Don’t watch this if you are neither.  It just won’t be funny.  Lots of inside jokes!)

There are a lot of complaints these days that people have lost their sense of humor and that everyone has gotten too sensitive.  To this I say, “Know your audience.”  When I am with my gay friends, we laugh constantly at jokes built around gay stereotypes.  We can do this because we know each other’s hearts and we’ve lived the reality.  There is some truth to the thought that you can only make certain jokes if you are part of the group.  I do not find the same jokes funny when they are told by someone who is not gay or whom I do not know well.  And it’s because I don’t really know their intent, which we touched on a bit recently.  Same thing with Jewish jokes or even female-centered jokes.  While people can certainly be over-sensitive, most of the time it’s because they don’t know the true intent of the jokester.  Yes, we need to give people a little grace and assume benign intent, but there are plenty of homophobes and anti-Semites out there who are not so benign.  And I’ve had to silently “take it” many, many times when people have told a joke in my presence and who don’t know (or forgot) that I am gay or Jewish.

Look, I can be as politically incorrect as the next person.  Mostly, I choose to express those jokes in restricted company.  I unfortunately have had to learn that “know your audience” lesson over and over again and try to remember that others are trying to do so as well.  We NEED to laugh!  We NEED to not take ourselves too seriously!  And we need to respect others and try our best to be kind in the process.  I’ve leave you with one more clip, as someone in her 60’s ready to start collecting Social Security and join Medicare.  Because we all need to learn to laugh at ourselves, too.