The Tragedy of My Life.

When I was visiting my brother, I was talking to him about what a bad day it'd been. I slept in late because I was up so late and was tired from the week. I was thrown off in my schedule. When I talked to Jess on the phone, she could tell I wasn't exactly fine, although I wasn't even quite sure why. My car was covered in grossness. I forgot my jacket. I had no cash to make quarters to put air in my tires. I laughed through it all, but I was joking with Dustin about how I could blog about it. He mentioned that my blog is more of an account of the worst things that happen to me more than anything else. I responded that I can write about that most easily. Making less than ideal situations appear comical to my friends seems to be the one thing I can write about.

Last year, I was riding to church with my grandfather. My grandparents live next door half of the year, during the warmer months they live in a cabin in North Carolina. I still never see them as often as I should, and usually it's just in larger settings so I never have more than casual conversation with them. However, once my grandfather was driving me to church, since I was going to church with Grandma, Grandpa, and Mom. Grandma and Mom, being in choir and orchestra, respectively, were already at church. Grandpa and I talked on the way, and I remember him saying, "You have to laugh. That's the only way to get through life. Learn to laugh at yourself."

I used to get really worked up about stupid things. Saying a word in the wrong context and being laughed at. Being embarrassed. Mostly things that made me embarrassed in front of people. Sometimes I became frustrated to the point of tears. Quite often, in fact.

I laugh things off more, now. When I saw my car, I got upset. I called Gauraw and started crying to him, to which he had little response, since, as he told me later, he was trying not to laugh at the situation and upset me. So I called my brother, Dustin, because I knew that I needed to laugh. I told Dustin the state in which I found my car. And, of course, Dustin burst into laughter. And asked for a picture. Then I began to laugh, too, and joke about how horrible it looked.

This was just one small situation of many. If I had just laughed at the car in the first place, I could have saved myself alot of unnecessary grief. There's countless other situations I look back on and realize the same thing. And there's so many more recent when I realized I would have originally gotten upset, but instead I laugh, even if it's directed at myself. And the result is quite preferable. One example could be this blog. I write about the situations that had me most frustrated, upset, or even ridiculous ones that I managed to laugh through.

I ramble on so much in these blogs that I never have a good way to end them. That's another problem with writing thoughts like this and not having events. But, I guess an ending would be to thank Grandpa. I don't know if he realized the effects that statement would have on me in the next two years as I went off to college, but by making such a tiny difference I've made situations immensely more bearable. Thanks, Grandpa.