One Remedy For The Stressed Out Busy Life

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.  ~Victor Hugo

Reaching high into the cabinet, I placed the cup on the shelf.  While my 8-year-old read aloud to me from the chair at the kitchen window, the mental to-do list played its typical tune in the background of my mind.  Homework could get done while I put away dishes and got dinner started.  Needed to hurry because time was approaching to leave for tennis lessons.  Papers lay strewn everywhere.  Oh yeah, that’s the other pile to add to my to-do list.  Those phone calls never got made.  Steve asked me to do something.  What was it? How many people did I disappoint this week because I didn’t have time? The mental list worked hard to drown the sweetness of the 8-year-old in the corner.

That serious commander in my mind prevented me from hearing little footsteps approaching.  Little arms getting bigger each day encircled me from behind, a sneak attack. Before I could move, his face pressed hard in my back.  Then the unexpected moment.  He blew a raspberry with force that is typical from this ultra-phyiscal 5-year-old.  And the tickle nerve reacted equally hard.

Doubling over, I spun around and grabbed him.  Wide eyes and a even wider smile kidnapped his face.  He went in hard for the stomach this time, and I reacted harder. Laughter burst forth with a force to match his.  In a moment we were each held hostage, he to his surprise over my laughter.  Me to the laughter I couldn’t control.

Relentless, he kept coming until I finally threw my hands up in surrender.  When the giggles stopped, silence took the stage.  The mental to-do list had quieted, but so had my 8-year-old.  His eyes held onto the scene long after it had ended.  “Mommy, I haven’t heard you ever laugh that hard.”

“Well, he went looking for the tickle spot and found it.”

His words began playing over and over again in my mind.  And that look.  That look of wonder and surprise.  Why was that?  How I loved seeing it.  I wanted more.

The days will always hold more to do than to enjoy.  The days will too often hold more trouble than fun, more hurts than smiles.  The days will try to quiet the laughter with busyness.  The days will try to steal these moments.

I smile a lot, but laughter is what I need.  Laughing released something.  The tension maybe? The idea that I was the one holding everything together.  Keeping it all spinning?  So what if a couple of plates fall if I can laugh at the mess.

Laughter found me and showed me what I was missing out on.  Sometimes what is missing doesn’t just happen upon us.  Sometimes we have to seek it out.  Sometimes we have to go looking.  I’m looking for more laughter this week.  It can be found in the piles of stress, the mountain of to-dos, the boss breathing down our neck, and the kids fighting over who got the biggest.

This week – I will laugh at the moments that make me want to cry.  I will laugh at the piles and lists that bully me around.  And I will laugh at the situations that seem to have swallowed helium.  I might just surprise the littles by bursting into fits of laughter in the midst of a 3 brother brawl.  It may be just the thing I need to change how I see it all.

What makes you laugh?  Not just smile, but really, really laugh?  Please share with us.  What makes you laugh may just be what the doctor ordered for your fellow-sister-reader.