Laughter with others

Somewhere in my life’s experiences, being stoic seemed like a reasonable way to show up.  I was full of self-pity and too fearful to talk about it.  Thanks to the miracle of recovery, I have much laughter and happiness in my life.  That is a lot better than how it used to be.

For example, my brother died when I was 15 on a day that I have long considered to be the worst day of my life.  I did not know how to process grief.  In hindsight, going to school the next day was not the best way to handle my grief and loss.  Years of Alanon recovery eventually taught me that getting paralyzed in a logging accident when I was 22 was a worse day.  (There is a bit of cause-and-effect there in that had not the first thing happened, I would not have been such a hurt angry young man taking out my pain by beating the crap out of the trees in the forest.)

Now I have useful powerful tools to process my emotional pain so that it can be treated in healthier ways besides being stuck in stoicism.  The best way to get my emotional pain to stop hurting so much is to stop letting it negatively impact my will, my thoughts and my life from this day forward.  There is much grief and loss in my life.  That sucks.  

Laughter with friends during shared moments of joy and over the foibles of our morbid reflection is one of the best tools and feelings I have in my life today.  It is not the laughter at the pain of others creating distance in relationships, it is laughter with others over our foolish responses to pain creating intimacy in our relationships.

I am grateful for the laughter with others in my life today.