Tag: Friends

Faces of Facebook (A 2018 Photo Essay)

On By Edissa Nicolás-HuntsmanIn Art, Community, Culture, Photo Essays1 Comment

 

ABC: Alana G., Contingent Worker: Line Cook; Alejandro, Global Security; Amel F., Reception Associate; Amy H., VP Global Learning and Development; Andrew N., Data Science; Andrew, Line Cook; Arthur F., Line Cook; BJ P., Graphic Design; Bahar Z., Data Science; Becca T., Data Science; Ben C., Global Security Executive Services; Brandy, Shuttle Driver; Buddy G., Contingent Worker: Graphic Design; Carlos, Bus Driver; Carmen, Data Science; Christina, Shuttle Driver; Christopher H., Logistics; Cindy C., Marketing Manager; Claire H., Data Science; Corey, Line Cook

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D-I: Dana M., Technical Platform Manager; Daniela R., Global Security; David H., Data Science Manager; Deliah S., Front House Manager; Erica, Outsourced; Esmeralda H., Housekeeping; Ester, Housekeeping; Elma, Reception Associate; Fern D., Shuttle Driver; Gabby, Housekeeping; Hari S., Data Science; Heather, Data Science; Ivan, Housekeeping

 

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JKL: Jason P., Software Engineer; Johana V., Front House; Joshua L., Help Desk Specialist; Juan Carlos P., Line Cook; Julia C., Data Science; Justin B., Data Science; Kamille V., Executive Assistant; Kedra G., Contingent Worker: Global Security; Krystal SJ, Data Science Manager; Leslie, Front House; Lisette, Front House

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MNO: Manjyot S., Manager Tech Platforms; Marlon, Hospitality; Maria A., Housekeeping; Mark L., Strategic Partner Development; Marten; Martchel, Bus Driver; Mego T., Ergonomics; Miao Y., Data Science; Michael H., Help Desk Specialist; Michael S., Data Science; Mike V., Contingent Worker: Global Security; Miguel, Housekeeping; Mingnan L., Data Science; Nadine R., Operations Program Manager; Neha K., Tech Platforms Manager; Nica W., Contingent Worker: Housekeeping; Nicole G., Technical Platform Manager; Nicole, Employment Legal

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P-Z: Rachel H., Marketing Manager;Rafael L., Global Security; Ray L., Global Security; Robert J., Director, Sales Compensation; Rodrigo C., Reception Associate; Roxana C., Front House; Ryan, Transportation support; Sandy, Data Science; Shawanda W., Sourcer; Sze Wai, Data Science; Tim G., Shuttle Driver; Warren K., Data Science; Yulia D., Marketing Manager; Yulia I., Contingent Worker: Data Engineer

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The Color of Fear: Friends (Diversity Series, Part II)

On By Edissa Nicolás-HuntsmanIn Community, CultureLeave a comment

When friends come over for dinner, does everyone look like you? In an exploration of what it means to make room at the table, I recall the years in the late 90s when one of the most popular shows on television was Friends. From 1994-2004, as many of my coworkers rushed home to see Friends, I had to give the popular program a pass, wondering why none of the pals on Friends looked like me. I was never invited to the party. I didn’t find that not-so-subtle notion amusing. There’s nothing funny about exclusion. My circle of friends didn’t look like the cast, and I wanted more than tunnel vision from my entertainment. Fast-forward a decade and the country is contorted with the searing pain of misunderstanding, mistrust and fear. This shows me the real, everyday value of diversity. If we pick our friends, then the friends we pick matter.

Fifty years after Jim Crow officially and legally ended, there is widespread discomfort and stereotypes about people with dark and non-European phenotypes. It’s possibly a self-perpetuating cycle, wherein racism, discrimination and injustice against people leads to a deep fear of retaliation of the same brutal isolation, disenfranchisement and alienation. It’s still common to hear good people claim color-blindness, a banal lie that undermines honest communication. The commonly held theory is that by the age of 3 or 4, children can already discern racial and ethnic differences. Well, honestly, I can see why some folks continue to rely upon the failed trope of “colorblindness”: The truth requires an awareness regarding individual power, position and the ability to communicate. Only by relinquishing the myth of colorblindness can we breathe new life into our extraordinary society.

The first step is to embrace the nuances of the complex collective history of our dear nation.

Let me say that this is not academic. People are community-minded creatures. We literally need each other to survive and thrive. True, there are the odd cases of those who go it alone, but most of us are looking for our clan—it’s why people easily gravitate to people who look like them. Here’s the challenge. A clan need not solely be based on skin color, socioeconomic class or religion. In a sense, there is a false sense of safety there, when in reality, those groupings merely ensure a baseline of respect. There is the expectation that everyone in that group knows how to behave and can read the covert social cues, allowing them to understand implicit rules that outsiders may miss. But those rules shouldn’t be enough for one group to relegate another group to the margins of acceptability as if they were numbers in some neat binary system.

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Moving toward the middle requires opening to not knowing. Shifting our perspectives into curiosity mode may be the very salvation our society needs.

The answer to some of woes is to make diversity a priority. Visible, discernable differences are part of the natural world. The human species’ varied spectrum of shapes, hues and sizes are spread thinly over virtually identical biological matter, with only small variations of genetic coding to give us our unique external appearance. We are all mammals, capable of sophisticated language and superior intelligence; it’s up to us to end the artifices of separation.

If you want to make a difference, start by acknowledging the realities of whatever is in front of you. Instead of holding on to prefabricated fantasies about people, ask questions. Make a new friend. See the beauty in someone, anyone, who isn’t just like you. So maybe a little discomfort is required, a little awkwardness and just enough vulnerability to invite humility and authenticity, but not so much as to create anxiety. From this opening there can be a dialogue, the invitation to not know and to welcome the time investment needed for the knowledge and friendship to grow. Be willing to possibly feel a little silly to get to know a colleague. Ask about hobbies and favorite foods, and listen. Start small and build on the currency of your good will. Empathy and connection bring people together in friendship. We can solve the crisis of fear by laughing or crying together. Firing off mirror neurons in the company of new acquaintances will humanize both parties. Take the risk. You could just find yourself with a whole new group of friends.

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Four Great Reasons to Get a Game Night Going

On By Edissa Nicolás-HuntsmanIn Community, Culture, Emotional Wellness2 Comments

 

 

While I make time to play with children as often as possible, I also love to play games with other adults. This is a time to unwind and let out my stored up sass. The benefits of play are well researched, and game night is one way to make sure you get a free booster shot of psycho-emotional wellness. As a teacher I believe we can only reinvent the world when understand the one we’re living in. This applies to the game of life. I’m almost always open to changing the rules of a game to make it more interesting, challenging or fair. I look at this as an important life skill. It’s agency at its highest potency. Like will power, we can store up skill sets and cash in when the time is right. Can I negotiate the salary I really want? How well am I at playing by the rules? What happens when I don’t get what I want? Games teach us about and help us to improve upon the parts of ourselves that we want to strengthen.

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For starters, game time involves communication. It’s a time for discussing rules, finding answers, problem solving and sharing. A new game usually requires careful reading—often out loud—and lots of review. These are core skills that can be useful when we’re proposing ideas at work or presenting to a room full of strangers. Game time is face time. There’s opportunity to try on different roles and experiment with personality.

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Some games require lots of negotiating skills. Interesting dilemmas come up when you play a game like Settlers of Catan: Should you trade with an opponent? What’s a fair trade? Whose resources should you raid? These are difficult choices that have to be made while directly facing the intended person. These are small, but not insignificant, ways of dealing with confrontation. They are opportunities to get comfortable asking for clarification, explaining complicated ideas, sticking to a hard decision or ditching a game plan that’s not working. These are real life negotiating skills that can toughen us up for when it really counts.

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Learning a new game requires patience. When I first started to play Scrabble as an adult, I thought I was a complete idiot. I no longer think that. Achieving a score of 333 points helped boost my confidence. (I still keep the scrap of paper with my winning score in the Scrabble box in case I need to charge my battery.) Scrabble is a word game, yes. But it’s also a game about strategy and knowing how to use the board to maximize points as much as it is an actual measure of the extent of one’s vocabulary. This mirrors real life. Sometimes half of what’s happening is how you’re using what you’ve got. Sometimes it takes time to see the possibilities in life and to actualize them. One doesn’t always win the first time around.

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Let’s not forget the oodles of fun to be had. There’s often a great deal of storytelling, laughter and sharing involved in a game night. Frequently, we partake of a meal together prior to the game and invest time getting to know each other throughout the play. When you play board games, it’s a time to sit around and share memories and see how others respond to setbacks and understand what makes them laugh. There’s also competition, which I think needs a positive outlet. And, if you’re really enjoying yourself, playing games with friends can also lead to higher levels of serotonin and dopamine in your system. You can start out playing a game and end up contributing to your own emotional and social wellness.

 

Laugh for Life: The Benefits of a Good Guffaw

On By Edissa Nicolás-HuntsmanIn Emotional Wellness, Good Habits, Physical Wellness, Spiritual WellnessLeave a comment

 

“A vegan and a Big Mac walk into a bar…”

 

I don’t know the punch line for that joke, but I do know that laughing is good, and that most of us want to laugh when we can. For example, on a recent social call, we spent an afternoon with friends who made us laugh nonstop. For about four hours, we laughed at jokes, each other and ourselves. The afternoon left us feeling lighthearted, energized and glowing. Imagine my delight when I found out that laughter is better than an anti-depressant pill. Now I’m on the hunt for my next big laugh. I hope you’ll join me.

 

Have you ever laughed so hard that your face hurt and the skin behind your ears got hot and your cheeks ached? If you answered yes, endorphins were coasting through your veins, and you were happy, truly and simply happy—naturally. That is what laughter is all about. There’s a reason why people feel light, balanced and happy after a day with friends. Friends are awesome, especially if they make you laugh. What’s more, I’m convinced that laughing makes us look and feel younger and more vibrant.

 

As it turns out, this is not just my fanciful idea. There’s plenty of research that confirms that laughter really is good medicine. Don’t take my word for it, investigate positive psychology and see what you learn. And, there’s also such a thing as laugh yoga, which focuses on daily laughter techniques. Because of what I’ve learned, I’m adding laughter to my list of 2015 goals, and here’s why you should, too:

 

  1. Just look at someone who laughs a lot. What do you notice? Laughter peels the years off of our faces. When we’re laughing, we’re literally working countering gravity, pulling our face muscles up—they’re tightening, drawing up and flexing, and we’re shining and beaming like a porch lights. We are meant to do this. We are meant to be bright, our eyes cleared with tears of laughter.
  2. Laughing is great exercise. This is in intuitively true. Think about it. When we laugh hard for even five minutes, what happens to our bodies? First, abdominal muscles contract, and who couldn’t use some free sit-ups? Next, some might experience shortness of breath or other physical sensation caused by peals of laughter. This is like running around the block because it’s aerobic, only you don’t need to shower afterwards, unless you’ve been rolling around the ground in utter jocularity while at a picnic, which actually sounds quite awesome. During all of this, the brain and other muscles in the body are getting fresh oxygen. Clearly, this is a superior method of staying young. Simply laugh off the years.
  3. Another benefit of laughing is that apparently we can’t hold two emotions simultaneously. That means we must choose to be positive. We can turn the tide of our emotions by exercising the positive ones. When we do, chemicals in the brain and body are altered. We can’t hold grudges while we’re laughing. So we  essentially free ourselves with laughter. Laugh long enough and all your troubles will be forgotten. That sounds marvelous to me.

 

Now that I understand some of the benefits of laughter, I’ve been looking for more things to laugh at in my daily life. In dance class, I’m quick to laugh when I make a mistake, and it makes the time more pleasant, the learning easier. It also means I can bounce back more quickly from uncomfortable situations. I start looking for the humor in my actions and thoughts and take myself a teensy bit less seriously, because life is more fun when I’m laughing.

 

Curious about how to get more laughter in your life? Check out Dr. Madan Kataria’s video introduction to Laughter Yoga: Laughter Yoga Video

 

 

Making Every Life Matter: How Gen Y Is Reinventing Mourning

On By Edissa Nicolás-HuntsmanIn Community, Culture, Emotional Wellness2 Comments

 

I’ve often wondered what happened to the American ritual of wearing a black armband when someone in the family dies. The practice is immortalized in the 1946 film, It’s a Wonderful Life, where John Bailey’s wears one after his father passes away. In some cultures black attire is worn for a year after a death. And in others, a widow must wear black until the end of her days. It is human to mark death in a public way.

 

Unfortunately, today’s urban youth live with a nearly daily awareness of death, and it’s not just grandparents who are dying, either. These are violent times, and it’s youth who forfeit their lives. Young people of color in urban areas seem to have an inordinate amount of death to contend with on a regular basis. Just how do they handle the burden of so much loss? They embrace it and wear it like armor, and in the process, they bring their love and grief into the most unexpected places.

 

In the past seven years of teaching, I’ve seen the emergence of a new and profound display of grief from young people in my classes. More than ever, the relics of their fallen peers are captured and worn in daily vigil. Tee shirts are emblazoned with the bright face of a friend, a cousin or a sister; epitaphs on shirts, badges and decals to the dearly departed commemorate the loved ones and keep the beloved alive in the hearts and minds of their community. Decorated with the photos of the fondest memories of the deceased, family and friends wear buttons and placards on lanyards. Quite literally, the dead go to college, work and the movies with their living friends.

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The result is magical. It humanizes the youth who wear these tokens of love, while at the same time revering the deceased. These tokens of love are a clear source of hope, respect and grief. Moreover, they bring awareness and compassion to the wearer, who more than ever needs the visibility and the loving gaze of others. This is essential since grief makes people do strange things; it can alter their personality or cause erratic behavior. Without a clear external sign, how can others know that errant comportment is possibly connected to a major life transition?

 

The death of a loved one does not easily fade from memory or dull with time. The ritual of wearing a tribute signals to others the status of the wearer: “I’m hurting.” “Handle me with care.” “Compassion needed.” “I’ve lost a dear one.” There is no way to turn away from such an outpouring, to not look with understanding at the person in pain.

 

As teachers, we need to know when our students are suffering so we can share their burden. It can mean not asking for what he or she may not be able to give on a particular day. As co-workers, community members and friends we can greet these youth with kindness and much-needed compassion in a fast-moving world that too often denies the harsh realities of young people of color. We can grieve with our youth, express condolences and sympathies, and be patient with them. The stress and heartache caused by death is well documented. That’s not new. What has changed is our society, which seems to have become anesthetized to the pain caused by violence and untimely death, especially that of other people’s children. That is why Generation Y has taken to demonstrating their grief in a public way. It’s a form of resistance to the status quo. It’s a loving anthem that cries out, “Every life matters.”

 

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Here’s a picture of Giovanni, who last year almost always wore a tribute to his deceased friend to school.

 

Easy Crafts for Gathering Friends

On By Edissa Nicolás-HuntsmanIn Art, Community, Emotional Wellness, Family Matters, Gardening3 Comments

 

 

 

Remember Plaster of Paris? Gosh, I sure do. I remember a fifth-grade art-class project in which we mixed the plaster powder with water and filled our molds to make three-dimensional reliefs of our choice of animal. I made a butterfly, which had a great big air-bubble dimple on its wing caused by air trapped on the bottom of the mold. I didn’t care a bit. I painted that butterfly, wrote my name on the back of it, and took it home to perch on a windowsill. I was thrilled with my creation. Recently I shared this experience with some girls from my community. What started with a little paint and plaster ended with dancing and laughing.

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Even though it may seem like a simple thing, mixing plaster can be a challenge. Things can go wrong; the mix can harden quickly on a warm day, or it might never dry. The oldest of my guests, a sixteen-year-old, mixed the plaster with some hesitancy after reading the instructions while the younger girls worked on painting the casts I had poured earlier in the day. As she worked, the plaster alternated between being too thin and too thick before it clumped up, and then when we added more water, it liquefied, but only in places. We were only able to get one viable cast from the mix. As I observed Kea, she was just a little afraid to get her fingers dirty and quite tentative about pouring the thick goop into the mold. “Don’t worry,” I said, “Dive in. Use a rag if your hands get dirty.” She grew slightly more emboldened yet remained guarded. I mentioned that the plaster could also be used to repair a hole in a wall, to which she nodded casually. Of course, being competent is important for a person her age. I wanted to let Kea have dignity, while gently letting her know that making mistakes is only natural when you’re doing something for the first time. I’m not sure she believed me, but she walked away visibly relieved that our time was over. As the oldest girl, I knew I had to let her take the lead with the others in an activity. She had to be in charge.

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When Kea rejoined the younger girls, the plaster painting was winding down, and the youngest ones were getting extra silly mixing paint colors for fun. The signal that the activity was over registered, and I began to direct the girls to clean up their areas before heading down to the garage for planting seed starts.

In the garage, I gave each girl a small tray with six cups that I had set out earlier. I showed them how to fill the tray with soil from a large orange bucket that contained potting mix. After the demonstration, I put Lea in charge of managing the soil distribution while I gathered the seed packets from my special gardening drawer. She lined them up by age and had the job done by the time I got back with the seeds. The magic started when I read of the seed choices. Each girl got excited over different seeds. They were sweet and eager and tender with the tiny seeds. I made sure they each took a good look at all the seeds to see just how different a bean seed is from a collard and tomato. They were impressed and focused on the task of planting and observing. They covered the seeds with a light layer of soil and watered them. After labeling their trays, we headed out to the garden so they could see what their seeds would look like in a few weeks with sunlight, care and attention.

In the garden, the second-oldest girl, nine-year-old Kia, was ecstatic. She ate raw broccoli and snow peas and poked her nose into every bush. She was fearless and clearly a naturalist. In the garden older brother and father to Kendall, Eli, who had been weeding and sowing with Hal, watched over the brood and his five-year-old daughter with tenderness. After showing them how to plant garlic cloves, we gave the girls garlic and let them plant them wherever they wanted. Soon Kendall grew jittery with the awareness of the terrifying bugs in the garden and had to retreat to the safety of the house. Lila, on the other hand, was instructing the older girls on how to identify onions and garlic. She’s finally comfortable in the garden. After some pictures, we headed inside for refreshments, followed by show and tell. Big smiles and good-natured teasing flavored the early evening.

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In reality, an art project is just an excuse to fill our house with the noises and laughter of children. The girls showed off their art projects while we ate snacks and cranked up the stereo. We laughed at our own foibles and teased each other over our eccentricities. We found the easy place between newness and trust and found we liked what we discovered.

 

Eight Ways to Cultivate Relationships with Youth

On By Edissa Nicolás-HuntsmanIn Community, Family Matters2 Comments

I’m a great believer that the job of parenting need not fall solely on parents. Parenting is full-time job; they need a vacation once in a while. That’s where aunts and uncles come into the picture, because in a community, we can all play a vital role in the outcome of our youth.

As a couple, we have lots of young people in our lives: biological and unrelated nieces and nephews, special students, godchildren and little friends who we adore. We are committed to them even if we’re not their parents. This has led me to consider my role and responsibility to them. We have to be invested, monetarily and otherwise. We have to make time for them and share their interests. I’ve also observed that when we hold young people accountable and responsible, we show them love and respect. We’re basically telling them we see them as capable and reliable people. High expectations are never bad things, especially when they are combined with love, guidance and support.

The pastor at my previous church always said that Faith is a verb, an action that we do on the spiritual path. After an amazing two weeks with my partner’s nephew, we’ve decided that “Uncle” and “Aunt” are also verbs. With the first wave of nieces, nephews and family friends graduating high school, going to college and finding out who they are, we’re uncling and aunting every chance we get. There’s another group of young people, some of whom I’ve had the great pleasure to know since birth, coming down the pipeline. I want to be there to see all the children in our community grow up and thrive. Therefore, I’ve decided, it’s time for this aunt to step up her game.

 

This past Christmas we had our nephew, a first-year college, visiting us from the Midwest. We got to play uncle and aunt full time to a teenager. We did some tourist activities, but mostly, we lived together as a family, cooking meals, working in the garden, making puzzles and talking. Over the years we’ve managed to expose our various young friends to our love of nature, much to the chagrin of their tender feet. This visit was no exception. For New Year’s Day the three of us walked 12 miles around beautiful Lake Chabot in Oakland, a special place for us because we had our first date there. To my surprise, our nephew had never hiked that far. And, just like that it was a major moment that we shared—a first. The long stretches in silence were opportunities to reflect on the strengths we bring into our community. Seeing him jumping from great redwood stumps and roll down the hillside gave me enormous pleasure and pride. I have little doubt that he felt some of his own gratification at having achieved these amazing feats and for beating me back to the car in a sprint born from a competitive burst of energetic youth. Well, someone had to get there last. At home, he tried exotic food, and made choices based on personal conviction. We observed Sabbath with him in order to be in community with him and respect his faith.

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Whether it’s asking about successes and triumphs, scolding over a failing, or instructing in our particular areas of strengths, most young people want to know that the adults in their lives care about them enough to make a fuss. I think I’m learning to be a better communicator because I’ve found that I’ve accepted that I don’t have to be a chum to my friend’s 18-year-old son; I can be a mentor and elder, and that’s enough. It’s never too late to get better at that. They need to learn things from us and teach us what they know. We can lovingly support our youth and their parents or primary caregivers by engaging them in various ways.

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First, Ask them hard questions about important things that maybe parents aren’t able to ask. Teach them some skills: share expertise and talents and create opportunities for connection. Reward and encourage them for doing those things that reflect personal growth and tenacity in the face challenges. Even acknowledging a hardship can mean a lot. Model good communication for them, and talk to them about the things that matter by engaging them in difficult conversation (you’ll both grow). Engage them in storytelling: Face time is critical; tell them about your mistakes, too! Occasionally, give unsolicited advice; what they do with it is up to them. Watch their favorite program with them, listen to their music and find out what they care about.

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Last, show that you care by making time for them; hug them even if it’s awkward the first ten times—we all need physical connection; and don’t forget to tell them that you love them whenever you can. You might find they love you, too!

Manifesto of Pain: Winding Down a Season of Trauma

On By Edissa Nicolás-HuntsmanIn Pain, Trauma3 Comments

I was wondering why I had one outbreak after another for five weeks. I couldn’t seem to stop them. Every time I thought I was well, a new rash developed. As a result, I wasn’t sleeping properly because of the constant pain I was experiencing. Another interesting detail I noticed, and could not initially interpret, was the odor of my body. I found it acrid, even after a shower. I believe that cortisol and adrenaline were to blame. Like an injured animal, I was in high-stress alert. Stress was prolonging my shingles, causing me more pain. Here’s what I now understand:

Real pain needs real medicine.

It is time to take a look at the body’s Central Nervous System (CNS). Our bodies have a dual nervous system, the CNS and the PNS or Peripheral Nervous System. The Chickenpox virus lives in the spinal cord, the CNS. The rash itself attacks along the PNS on the body and skin. Neuralgia, associated with shingles is a consequence of nerve damage on the PNS. The PNS system contains the nerve cells that travel to the CNS. Nerve cells, unfortunately have a kind of binary functionality; they’re either on for off. After weeks of being on, nerve cells may no longer know how to shut off. In a sense, they atrophy in an “on” position, which is why a very common side effect of shingles is the chronic pain caused by nerve damage, known as neuralgia. Some unfortunate souls experience neuralgia for upwards of six months post-shingles! Poor dears.

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It was only while talking to a friend of mine who lives with chronic pain that I understood that my pain had not been addressed by my medical provider. Even though the doctor herself told me to expect pain, she never prescribed a pain medication beyond Motrin, and even with Motrin, I was not prescribed the maximum dose available. My gynecologist gives me a higher dose of Motrin for menstrual cramps. At any rate, after trying to “bite through a nail” for another week, I crawled back to the doctor, balled myself up on the examination table, and wept openly. I managed to finally get the lowest dose of Vicodine available. It didn’t help much, but I stopped sweating. My offensive B.O.? Gone by morning! Also, the doctor doubled my dose a day later. I finally slept the entire night. The next day, I had a smile on a face. I knew my body could finally begin the healing process.

 

I’m fascinated that while in my doctor’s office, writhing in pain, she was trying to give me antibiotics. Surely I had something else, she thought. This was not a normal shingles outbreak. Well, what if one’s skin is brown and one has had about four consecutive outbreaks in a five-week period? How will that look? Through my pain I had the presence of mind to reject the antibiotics, which were in part responsible for my weakened immune system, leading to my original outbreak. At home, while awake in the early morning hours, I looked at pictures of shingles rash. They, in fact, looked exactly like what I had, only on brown skin, no big surprises. But, was my skin color playing a leading role in my treatment? I think so. An additional powerful realization of how lucky I really am, knowing things were bad for me, was seeing that I’ve had a relatively mild case of shingles. My heart goes out to people who are suffering with severe cases. That pain must be unforgiving. I pray that those people had proper opiate pain medicine. I’m convinced that untreated pain will prolong shingles. This is a compounded travesty. Let no one who reads this allow anyone you know to go without the appropriate pain medicine during shingles.

 

I have had some comforts, one of which is laugh therapy—did you even know that there’s such a thing as Humor Therapy? Well there you have it. We all need a good friend, or ten, to make us laugh, let us cry and miss us when we’re down and out. One friend in particular has seen me through this crisis with sheer exuberance. Somehow, just at the moment when we are both about to cry, Robyn will say something that brings tears of laughter to my face, sending me running to the bathroom to void my bladder and avoid an accident. I don’t know how we manage it, but this unexpected joy has brought me back from the brink of darkness numerous times over the past five weeks. I know it has been the same for her. Even when we are laughing at ourselves, we look through a lens of compassion, understanding and childishness, touching the innocence in ourselves. We get silly people! And, it heals us deep down where the hurt curls itself up. Laughter is one of the few ways I know to naturally get high, elevate your mood, and stay in your body.

 

 

I don’t have all the answers or even fully understand this episode in my life, yet. What I do know is that talking to friends has helped. They have led me to alternative care. Their advice has translated into self-advocacy. Friends have driven me to the doctor’s office. Friends have let me cry when I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. Friends have made me laugh my head off. Mostly, I don’t feel alone in my suffering. This has changed everything. I know I can’t rush ahead blindly. I must be mindful and manage my stress, avoiding extremes. I get to start over. Tea, anyone?