I want you to laugh

I want to tell you about all the awfulness in my life, some that has passed, some that I am still working through.

I want to tell you about funerals, doomsday doctors, people that can’t be trusted, and the accusations that tore my soul.  I want to warn you about what it’s like to be falsely criminalized and how several decades of honorable living doesn’t sway anyone, least of all a courtroom.  I want to tell you about a fear so real that it claws your soul and keeps you awake at night.  I want to explain why a girl surrounded by loved ones, educated, and powerful in her own right would consider divorce, suicide, and prostitution.  I want to share stories of bug-infested hotels, and untreated flus, and other people’s leftover food.  I want to teach you how I learned to lie in order to protect people– Good people– and how I learned that not everyone has goodness in their core.  I want to tell you how it feels to sell your wedding ring and the stuffed animal that you had since childhood, and what it feels like to have people tell you that you deserve every bad thing that happened to you.  I want to rip open my chest and show you what heartbreak looks like, and how it’s caused by people failing you in your time of need.

I want to pull the veins from my body, tearing them out alongside the hurts that have imprinted themselves on my blood cells, and present my nightmares to you on a silver platter.

Then I want you to take that shiny, slimy, bloody tray– and laugh.

I don’t want you to feel the sadness, pain, anger, and resentment that hallmarked those moments.

I want you to see the reflection of yourself and think: Thank God it wasn’t me!

I want you think that perhaps at least a little of the pain was the universe calling in a karmic debt because everything is connected in some way.  I want you to see all my trauma as nothing more than a cosmic pie splattered right in my face.  I want you to be so filled with Schadenfreude that when you open your mouth to reply, it comes out as a giggle.

Yes.

I want you to laugh.

Because if you’re laughing, it means you see yourself in the tray.  It means you feel vulnerable, mortal, and frightened, too– and then I am not alone in my fears.   It means that you see these gashes and festering wounds as boo-boos and bruises, and you are sure I can recover.  Your laughter means you are celebrating your good fortune and my strength.

I need you to laugh so I can celebrate with you, and heal.  I need to heal so I can wipe pie off my face and move on.

So when I am finally ready to carve a hole in my soul wide enough for you to crawl inside and look around– and you see the mess left behind and the damage done– please remember: I want you to laugh.