Laughing Like You Mean It
I am a funny, funny person. I make people laugh all the time. I find humor in many, many things. But I can't say that I actually all-out, full-body laugh like I mean it very often.

Sure, I chuckle and giggle. I do laugh at things often. Sometimes I even laugh when I shouldn't. But the times that I have really, truly, laughed with all of my being, rolling on the floor, not able to breathe, red in the face, tears streaming down my cheeks, pee in your pants, in serious pain, stand out as not very many.

Despite all of the differences my sister and I had throughout our years together on the planet, one thing we could always do is make each other laugh. Hard. Punch in the gut, rip-roaringly, my head is going to explode, hard. And I mean in the dumbest, stupid-est, most silly and ridiculous ways. Stuff that was only funny to us, and likely embarrassing to others. We were such dorks.

Well, I still am, I guess. Proudly.

I laughed hard this week at something, although not gut-wrenchingly hard. But it was enough to make me think about the times I've laughed mind-blowingly hard. And then I laughed some more.

The last time I remember laughing as though I wouldn't survive was several years ago during one of my last good, meaningful times with my sister. She came up from college to visit my parents. She and I weren't exactly on the best of terms, but we decided she would come stay with me at my apartment one night before she went back to school. I wasn't real excited about it, but I went with it. My parents wanted us to get along.

It turned out that we had a really nice time, and it was actually the only time she was ever able to stay with me, for which I am now beyond belief grateful that I was forced into it. I'd decided to be a gracious host, so I made out the sofa bed for her, and we just hung out. Nothing planned, just chillin'. In the morning I made her an egg sandwich for breakfast, one of the two things I knew how to cook at the time, and something I didn't think she would like. But she ate it up like there was no food left on earth except for my poor little egg sandwich concoction.

During the evening before we went to sleep, she was exploring my apartment and my things. We were both kind of checking each other out again, getting used to whatever our relationship was at the time. She looked through my videos and tapes and cd's. And my 8-tracks. The last time I'd been at my Grandma's house, she had a garage sale. I rescued her 8-track player and all of her 8-tracks from the garage sale pile, and brought it all back to life in my apartment. I couldn't believe she was thinking of selling this treasure! My sister and I had a great time playing Willie Nelson and other old tunes on the player. Good times.

Then we got to a cd I had tucked away because it was so horrible I couldn't bear to listen to it. It was a poor quality version of a movie soundtrack that I thought was a true find, but actually turned out to be a crappy keyboard version of a familiar tune that was just really, really bad. So bad, it was absolutely hysterical.

My sister pulled out the cd and we listened to some of it, and from then on we just simply howled with laughter. We laughed so hard that neither of us could see straight enough to turn off the cd player so we could catch our breath in the silence. We were flat on our backs, completely incapacitated, unable to speak, utterly uselessly laughing as though we had stumbled onto the funniest thing in the world.

I can't go into all the details of what was so funny because describing it would likely not be funny to anyone else. But it was the hardest and longest I had laughed in a long time, especially with my sister. And I haven't laughed that hard since. I miss those times with her. Through all that laughter, everything seemed okay, at least at that moment.

I'm laughing now thinking about it. Not hard, but like I mean it.

C.T.