Just Laugh When You Get Scared

A few weeks ago my younger sister sent me a card for my 40th birthday.  In it she wrote how much she admired my ability to laugh and smile through every obstacle I faced in life and move past it.  She said she never forgot the advice I gave her many many years ago when we were just children and how relevant it is for life.  It was something I had long forgotten I had told her, yet still today so relevant and the inspiration for my latest post.  

As an OT I now understand what a sensory disaster I was as a child.  As a toddler, I climbed our living room stone fireplace to the top of our cathedral ceiling, nearly giving my mother a heart attack.  As a child I was usually doing cart wheels or hanging upside down from the monkey bars on my swing set. or tying blankets between the caddy cornered bed posts in my room to make myself an indoor swing.   I couldn’t stop moving or being upside down. So it was no surprise I got a thrill from a good roller coaster ride.  

Many years ago, reminded by my sister, of the two of us waiting in line for her first rollercoaster ride, I must have sensed she was nervous and said, “If you get scared, just laugh.”  As I read what my sister reminded me of all these years later, I began to cry.  That’s always been the point the whole time.  This whole life thing.  Just laugh and have fun…enjoy the ride.  I knew it all those years ago but somehow had forgotten along the way.

I’m not sure exactly when I got so lost and started taking everything so seriously and stopped having so much fun, I guess being a grown up kind of does that to us.  The rollercoaster ride of life can be very scary at times, a ride with stress, grief, anger, sadness, and fear and at some point I forgot to laugh at the scary parts.  

Right up until the day I actually turned 40 for about three months, I was more anxious than I ever remember being at any other point in my life.  No matter how I reasoned it, my life was not what I imagined it would be and I was feeling like a failure with an impossible finish line/deadline ahead of me that I was not going to meet my goals.  But not only was I not going to be living the life i had once imagined for myself when I turned 40, but I was nowhere even close to it.  I wanted to stop time.  

But then it happened.  Time didn’t stop and I turned 40 with my life the beautiful disaster it is, surrounded by a room full of people I love who love me, laughter, and a little too much tequila, I felt so loved that night and it was the best way to reach that particular milestone.  My life was good - better than good, maybe this was better than what I imagined and wanted for myself. 

 And that hand written card from my sister reminding me to laugh when I get scared, of every gift I received and loved, that was the best and the one that I most needed.

And now that I am 40, ehh, its not so bad.  I spent a solid ten years being super serious about life, holding myself to ridiculous standards and that was useful at times, but I’m established now.  Of course, as a dreamer, I’m still chasing my dreams, I probably always will because I love the thrill of reaching new dreams and goals.  

 And that laughing when you get scared thing, it works!  I’ve been trying it on again and it really works!

For years, people have been telling me, “Just enjoy the ride.” When traumas have riddled your life it’s not so easy because survival is to be able to predict and be prepared for what comes next, expecting the worst and needing to know and have everything figured out. Traumas actually change the way our brains process our world so  I remind myself daily to try and do that, enjoy the ride,  but I struggled because for far too long I forgot to just laugh when I got scared.  So as I close out 2018, this blog, and enter this new decade of life, although I’ve been ready to enjoy the ride, now I know how to, I just need to remember to laugh if I get scared.