Have you ever laughed so hard that your stomach hurt? I believe in this kind of laughter. Being able to laugh at yourself and be okay with it. Laughing so hard that your stomach hurts and you can’t catch your breath. The kind of laughter that even makes your face hurt from laughing so long. As a child, I was always doing crazy things or cracking jokes. My parents know all too well how much my mouth makes them laugh. Now, my mouth doesn’t make them laugh because of my jokes, well sometimes, but more of what they call Sam-isms.
Ideas that really make no sense to anyone, but me. When I share a Sam-ism with my parents, they usually just look at each other perplexed, and then burst out laughing after they think they figured out what I was trying to say. I eventually learned to laugh at it myself, after they explained to me how idiotic my Sam-ism was. An example is, last year I went to the doctor to see if I had a concussion and the physician asked me if I had any memory lapses since the incident. I soon replied with, “I don’t think so, but I don’t remember. My dad then rolled his eyes and explained to the doctor that I wasn’t brain damaged, this was normal. Another example, is that one day I was riding in the car and all of a sudden a great idea, or what I thought was a great idea, popped into my head. All of a sudden I blurted out, “wouldn’t it be awesome if they had drive through stores where you didn’t even have to get out of your car to go shopping?
You could just drive into the store and drive around pulling the items you needed into you car until it was time to checkout. It took awhile to explain that one to my parents, and to realize myself that it was a stupid idea. When I get Sam-isms I never really think about them for too long until I decide to share them with others. As they would laugh and laugh about what I just said, I couldn’t figure out why they were laughing. Instead of just having the people that heard the Sam-ism laugh at me, I decided that I should be laughing at myself too. I started to get joy and amusement out of laughing at myself and thats why I believe in laughter.
Just the simplest thing someone says can set off a laughter so strong that you can’t breathe because you are laughing so hard. It can bring joy to the world and turn someone’s day around. The moral of the story is that I feel free to say whatever funny thing comes to mind and know that even if my friends and family are rolling laughing, I am right there with them laughing too! Don’t take life too seriously. You miss the great moments that make great memories.
