I know I always joke about dropping out of college, but I’ve really considered it today. It’s not something I take lightly. I’ve had so many amazing opportunities come my way and I worry that I may never have them again if I leave…but today I was sitting in class and laughed.
You may wonder why a laugh is a big deal, but its significance is that this particular laugh wasn't fake.
Many around me can't tell that my smiles and laughs are fake because I am a decent actor. Years of working in the restaurant business has honed this capability to appear perfectly fine while the kitchen is in utter chaos.
Attending college is akin to working in a restaurant. Everyone is running around in a blind panic jumping through ridiculous hoops, beating our bodies to the point of exhaustion to get a decent tip AKA grade. We plaster fake masks painted with fake smiles to our faces adhered with extra strength glue to keep it from falling off halfway through class because, heaven forbid, no one wants to end up being THAT kid in class who started randomly crying during the professor’s lecture.
My smiles and laughs are fake, but my tears are real. My stress is real. And my depression is real.
It's like Peter Pan's Shadow with a mind of its own. Some days I think it's gone, then I wake up and it's holding me down-smothering me in the bed. Hopelessness is consuming me and I can't move. I can't breathe, I can't sleep. I want to scream, but I can't even find the energy to do that either. Sometimes I can't even cry. Mostly though, I cry too much.
The world is hurting, our nation is hurting, our children are hurting and I am hurting. I see all this pain around me and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to fix myself. I don't recognize my own reflection in the mirror anymore because I can’t seem to take this mask of “I’m fine” off. I've stopped looking people in the eye during conversation because I'm scared they will look through me and see a soul that is shriveled and dying.
But I try to keep moving. Sometimes I make it to school. Sometimes I make it to my computer, Sometimes… I don't make it out of bed. But the one thing that motivates me to try and keep moving is this strange ability I seem to possess that makes people laugh.
I love making people laugh because I have forgotten what it feels like to laugh. I’m talking the good kinds of laughs that cleanse the soul, lighthearted, full-bodied or just simple ones over humorous little things.
It makes my day when someone tells me they love my Facebook posts or I get someone around me to laugh over something I said.
Today, I felt that laugh deep inside my bones and for that small moment spring began to take root in my soul. It felt like someone had opened a window and I could finally take a breath and clear my lungs-my mind from this fog I can’t seem to find my way out of.
It was over something ridiculous too—I was sneaking a Taco Bell burrito while watching a PowerPoint presentation in class and trying to hide it. But the important thing is: I didn’t feel the gravity of grades, homework, the state of our nation, my future, fear of failure, fear of disappointing anyone, fear of wasting my time here on earth, my existential dread— pulling me down.
The laugh—that quick staccato of breath— was enough in that small moment to grab onto and carry close to my heart and lungs for later, when the heavy waves of despair come crashing down on me again and I need to take another breath.
