Laughter is so healing.

I love laughter. I love how good it feels to laugh. I love how infectious it is. I love that people who laugh are happy. I love how pure, and simple, and beautiful it is. Not laughter at a television show, or a funny joke, but pure, happiness. That sort of laughter. I love that you can laugh about nothing, about everything, about life and the simple moments. About tiny pieces of humanity that are, in that moment, whole.

I never thought I'd be saying this Saturday night. Saturday night when I curled up and sobbed and wondered why I didn't have anything to help me fall asleep.

I think I dwell too much, sometimes, on what happened; it's so easy to have happen, and then I'm back there and it's real all over again. Sometimes it's incredibly way too easy to get so lost. And Saturday night, I was lost. I was so lost. And I hadn't slept, and I didn't know how to make it from point A to point B, I didn't even know where points A and B were. And so I did what I usually do, and pretended that it was all okay, and that there was nothing wrong, and that I was fine. And usually, that works. [The nights, like Saturday night, and right now, that I sleep on the couch, I think it doesn't work so well, and my room-mates can totally tell and are judging me for it- hey- it's not paranoia if they're really after you.] Usually, I do something like bake, or go shopping, or get out of the damned house and go to a party and drink away.

But something was different about Sunday. I asked a room-mate to 'hang-out' with me [and he, darling that he is, agreed even after we both acknowledged that we fail utterly at the concept of 'hanging out']. And I don't know how to explain it ... but I found the ability to laugh. To really laugh. To get go and stop thinking so much. And it was beautiful. I'm not sure if my room-mate wants to take credit, but if he does, it's all his [And the Recount Story of the Day™ posts with comments from the Kare11 boards. Oh, the goddamn insanity of that election]. I could go on about how surprised I was that it was a him, given the anniversaries and circumstances, but maybe ... maybe that's how it was supposed to happen. I'm not a karmic person. I don't believe in fate. But I do know that if I don't open up and trust, even on tiny friendship levels, I'll never be able to do it- I'll always be walled off. I had another friend send me a really moving, wonderful email after my room-mate went to bed- after I'd sent him a really emotionally email on Saturday night. And it was so relieving to read it, and maybe that's because of the healing laughter with my room-mate from earlier.

But it was love and happy and some degree of peace- and trust. All in tiny steps.

And as long as I've got that love, that trust in tiny steps, and as long as I have healing laughter, I think I'll be okay. I think I'll be able to get through the rest of today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.