You Should Laugh Today

You should take a moment out of your day today to laugh. With everything stressing, stressing, always stressing, it’s easy to take life too seriously, to frown and scowl and pass the day in annoyance. So you should definitely laugh.

Laugh with someone you love. Let them tickle you until you can’t breathe any more, until you think a little bit of wee might come out, until you become lightheaded from a lack of oxygen. Squeal and kick and writhe with glee and feign resistance but secretly wish for this moment to never end. This moment where there’s hands all over you, hands that you love like you’ve never loved before, where everything else is dissolved–work, money, time, life–and all you can think about is catching a breath between giggles. This moment when your cheeks and your guts hurt because you’re laughing so hard, and you are loved.

Laugh with your friends. Sit at a bar and lean into each other conspiratorially. Talk about something gross immature like poops and use words like “willy” and “doodle” and relish in the ridiculousness of everything that’s happened to you this week. Tell your tales of woe as though they happened on a sitcom and throw your head back with your mouth open and let out your wildest, most natural laugh. Let “difficulty” wash over you because all “difficulty” is is another story to tell your friends and your negroni as you all double over each other in mirth on Friday night. Fall into them, hug them, let your tears of laughter fall into their laps.

Laugh with your mom. Talk about that time when you were a teenager and did that stupid, rebellious thing because you thought you were a grown up. Know that you weren’t a grown up then, aren’t a real one now, and that even your mother, after all these years, still doesn’t feel like a grown up herself. Laugh because she’s your example that all we can do is try, but that deep down we will always be 19 in our hearts and souls. Laugh because you once lived inside her, because you once came out of her, because biology is insane and absurd, just like the love it makes you feel. Let her say things that embarrass you in ways that don’t even embarrass you any more, because now you know the big secret: the most embarrassing things are the best things, because they bring laughter.

Laugh with a stranger. Fall over in the snow and look up at the person passing you and laugh, letting them laugh too. Laugh silently with the person sitting next to you on the subway because someone farted loudly near you. Laugh with a small child peeking at you over its mother’s shoulder in line at Walgreens. Laugh at the bad dad jokes of your UPS guy. Laugh with people you’ve never seen before and will never see again.

Laugh with yourself. Laugh at your self. Tell yourself a joke in your head and laugh out loud. Watch TV alone and cackle. Dance in front of the mirror with glee. Laugh because you smudged your eyeliner, dropped a jar of pickles, Goggled a ridiculous query. Laugh when you fall out of your stupid looking yoga pose. Laugh while you’re reading. Hold nothing back. Laugh loudly. Louder. Cry. Snort. Feel like your eyeballs will drop out of your head. Give yourself sore abs. Laugh. Laugh. Laugh.