Flashback

In the course of our brief lifetimes, we hope to be fortunate enough to find people who “get” us. People who hear our quirky comments and laugh along with us and not at us. There is a this twisted sense of humor I share with my sisters that must have been some kind of genetic mutation, because neither of our parents really got us. They humored us and sometimes even shook their heads but I think they were a bit confounded as to how their three daughters ended up with such sick senses of humor. As my mom has gotten older….and I think subsequent to her own divorce…she has found her own streak of morbid humor.

I have a love of the absurd. I appreciate a finely craft retort and the verbal smackdown. Intellectual humor is my preference. Slapstick is painful and embarrassing to watch. I would rather watch blind people play golf than Mr. Bean. Humor at another’s expense I can’t abide either; it is too mean spirited to be funny.

So often we think about friendship and compassion as sharing in another person’s sorrows or sufferings. I think it also means sharing in their joys and amusements. If you cannot understand why competitive belching is hysterical, then you won’t get me. If you can’t catch the concealed barb and the veiled sarcasm of a commentary, then so much of my sense of humor will fall flat. When people are trying to get to know you, when you make a new friend, it is too easy to ask about the things that hurt. We so often use our misfortunes as mile markers of our lives. I would like to start adding the hysterical and the silly things from my past to designate significant life events.

On my birthday, one of the women from my sorority, Alpha Chi Omega made a comment about a song that we had to have played a bajillion times while dance in our dorm rooms or driving around D.C. The instant I read her post, I flashed through image after image of antics and ridiculousness. Ah, to be young, free, untethered and with few cares in this world. It was a great gift….so I will share it here:

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