This will make a really funny story.

I was reminded (by Stephen Colbert, of all people) of the commonality and connection between tradgedy and comedy and how finding and celebrating that connection can be a balm in trying times.

I used to get up to, and in to, a lot of very sketchy situations when I was younger. Stuff where, when I look back, I marvel that I am still walking around like a normal human, and not buried in an unmarked grave in a field somewhere. Like most teens, I was absolutely convinced I was immortal, but I was also the worst kind of smart kid, which is the smart kid who knows they're smart but are not as smart as they think they are. I was also surrounded by exactly the same kind of people for much of my childhood and young adulthood, and the fact that all of us made it to graduation still surprises me sometimes.

At one point, drenched to the bone and wearing a t-shirt, boxers, and nothing else, as rain bucketed down around me, I turned to my friend Matt who was similiarly attired and sitting next to me on the open tailgate of a pickup truck stuck in mud up to the axle as a literal flood turned our parking/camping spot into a rapidly-diminishing island, and smiled. Matt narrowed his eyes, sneezed, and then asked me what I was grinning about, this was a literal disaster and we were currently trying to find enough twine to tie to an arrow to shoot across the flood-river to tie onto a rope to fasten to a canoe to get the eight of us stuck on this island somewhere where we could take a hot shower.

"This will make a really funny story. Tomorrow."

At that point we both laughed, and because it was a disaster the laughter was contagious, and then everyone was laughing at the ridiculous chain of terrible decisions that had led us all standing in the rain in our underwear choking on our hysterical laughter.

I laugh because if I did not laugh I would be crushed by the cruelty and indifference of the universe; I laugh because if I did not laugh I could not overcome the fear of doing something, anything, that makes it possible to simply survive to the next sunrise. Being from a poor Irish Catholic family in the Midwest, and growing up at a time where the likelihood of escaping that poverty was already shrinking rapidly, often meant that joy and humor were something that had to be created whole-cloth. "Sing a joyful song to the Lord" was quoted liberally. We celebrate together because when things are terrible, what we have for ourselves is each other.

That simple motto, that the terrible thing happening right now will serve me and my fellow people as a moment of joy (or at least catharsis), is how I get through every day now. Things are terrible. But we have each other. And we have humor. And with those two things, we can create joy. And to create joy in an atmosphere of misery is the soul and certain heart of resistance.

Hang on; this will make a really funny story...tomorrow.