Mirth

“I need a drink!”  This is his hello when I dial in to our scheduled meeting at 2:30 in the afternoon.  I’m in equally dire straits stuffed behind the wheel of my parked car in the blazing summer heat outside the dentist’s office.  I’ve escaped from the waiting room, leaving my kids trapped inside in their own personal hell, tortured into submission by the whirling of the drill jack hammering cavities out of their teeth.  It’s not convenient, but it’s the only appointment we could find in the mad rush before school starts.

When our conversation starts with the need for an alcoholic beverage, it’s no surprise the whole meeting is hijacked by laughter.  As we lament how laden we are with commitments and responsibilities, he asks me if I can do a little work for him “off the side of my desk”.  Peals of laughter overtake me.  On the one hand I can’t believe he’d even make the request, but on the other, I’m flattered into a quandary, knowing it’s a sign of how much he enjoys working with me and the feeling is mutual.  If I’m going to be overloaded, I want it to be with him.  After considerable banter over the audacity of his request, we reluctantly hang up with no resolution, but somehow feeling immense relief.  I’m drying the tears from my eyes.  The memory of this conversation sticks with me.

The question of the week is “Do I take myself too seriously?”  Yeah. The answer is a resounding yes.

Life is hard.  There is no denying it.  Holding down a job, running a household, raising children, maintaining close personal relationships:  They all pose challenges to work through, raise competing priorities, involve multiple stakeholders and can require the occasional gut wrenching decision.  No wonder we forget to have a good time. 

But here’s the thing:  Life isn’t just hard, it’s short.  And, really, things do tend to work themselves out.  Today’s catastrophe can be hard to recall thirty days from now.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m advocating flat out apathy, but sometimes I think we put too much work into just being. What would happen if we took it down a notch?  Would things fall apart?  I doubt it.

 

So I’m thinking now about how I might stop for a minute the next time I’m in a situation that seems calamitous, grim or disastrous and just do a quick gut check.  Could a little humor be applied here?  It just might change everything.

On the beach in California, as the boys and I are starting a bonfire, Nate offers to go back to the car to retrieve something we forgot.  Nick, with his mischievous, soulful brown eyes begs Nate to leave his iPhone behind.  Nate knows what will happen next, and leaves it anyway; fully aware Nick will proceed to take a series of goofy-face photos that Nate will subsequently need to delete in (mock?) exasperation.  I normally don’t join in this fun, but this night I look at Nick knowingly and the moment Nate takes off we snap away.  We cannot stop laughing.

In my car driving to the office the other day, I recall again that conversation in the dentist’s parking lot.  It doesn’t just resonate with me.  My partner in crime makes a point to stop by my desk this week and say thanks for the laugh, yet another piece of humanity at work.

Can’t we just be effortlessly?