It’s Not Funny: Facing My Laughing Lies by Michelle Goering

I was in Trader Joe’s on a Tuesday morning. I’d coasted to a stop in the middle of the aisle and was staring at the salty snack options, thinking about how none of them were healthy but that I needed something to throw into the family lunch bags. I felt someone behind me and turned to see my cart was blocking a harried-looking customer. “Oh!” I said and laughed heartily as I struggled with the cart in the narrow aisle. “I’m so sorry; I’m taking up the whole road!” My fellow shopper looked at me, smiled faintly, and tipped her head in acknowledgment of my apology as she rushed down the aisle. 

I grabbed three bags of my son’s favorite spicy plantain chips, and headed around the corner into the next aisle. As I stood in front of the frozen foods, contemplating the gyoza, I found myself sighing. God, I sounded exactly like Mom just then. Laughing loudly in every situation, funny or not. I replayed the moment in my mind, and my laughter sounded hollow and insincere in replay. Who laughs when they don’t mean it? Who laughs when they’re apologizing, when they’re angry, when they’re afraid, when they’re sad? My mother did. And so do I. 

I was still thinking about my strange laughter as I headed home. I do it with Tim, too, I thought, remembering a recent moment with my husband. He had an impatient outburst over not being able to find something he needed to take to work, and I rushed into that uncomfortable space with a laugh to defuse him and break the tension. I often head off emotions, or hide from them, with a laugh. It’s a well-traveled road, an ingrained habit.

My twenty-year-old son calls me out on it. He’s got autism and its attendant difficulties reading other people. But boy, can he spot the insincerity in me. “Why are you laughing?” he’ll say. “It’s not funny.” Or he’ll imitate me when I cloak my anger in a laugh. Or he’ll become furious with me: if he drops or spills something, I’m liable to say “Oops!” and laugh. I don’t think it’s funny that he dropped his knife. I’m trying to get him to take it less seriously because his dysregulation makes me uncomfortable. But he sees what I’m doing, and he feels manipulated and scrutinized by my sideline micromanaging. Ouch.

I understand what the laughter is for. I think the women in my family have been using it for generations. Mom used to say her mother was always laughing too, and I know Lydia Burkholder wasn’t a happy or carefree woman. She was a member of a strict Amish community in Indiana, the bride in a shotgun wedding, soon a mother of five in a family struggling to feed everyone. It was not a life to laugh about, but there was no room for her real feelings. 

The laughter is an apology and disclaimer that accompanies whatever is being said. A kind of Don’t pay me no nevermind. It’s not an apology for actual sin or trespass but more of an apology for being. An apology for having an impact, taking up space, needing consideration. An apology for having an unpopular or differing thought. And it’s a cover for the real feeling, the unacceptable anger, annoyance, grief, or shame. Within my Amish ancestors’ culture, wholesale acceptance, egolessness, and obedience are paramount. Even though Mom left the Amish religion and I have never practiced it, I still carry those family patterns.

I laugh because I’m afraid to speak without it, to stand outside its cover. Laughter undermines the seriousness of whatever I say. If I’m offering my firm belief, it’s made soft and squishy when I deliver it with a laugh. If I’m giving a rebuttal, I negate it by my laughter. If I have an angry grievance or take a swipe at someone or something, I declaw and turn it into a childish thing as I giggle through the delivery. If I’m telling a painful personal story, my laughter makes a lie of my real grief and loss.

My mother had many fine qualities. She was humble, patient, kind, and persevering. Making others comfortable around her was one of her strengths. People remember her for her laughter at all times. She often made others laugh and feel good. I think I have that ability, too. Being able to laugh at myself is important, and there are moments when that self-deprecation is useful and disarming. 

But now that I see more clearly what I’m doing, I am determined that the apologies for my feelings, my ideas, and my opinions that I communicate by laughing when I talk to others need to stop. If I can’t take myself seriously, why would anyone else? I want to be vulnerable enough to express my true emotions with others and brave enough to believe that the less delightful aspects of me are acceptable too. 

So maybe the next time my son or husband has a little fit that has nothing to do with me, I can just keep my mouth shut. The next time I step on someone’s foot, I can offer a simple and sincere apology, straight up. The next time I have something difficult to say, maybe I can find the courage to just say it, and let the listeners take care of themselves. And I can use my laughter where it belongs—as an expression of my joy, my true delight and happiness, and my goofy sense of humor. I think my mother and grandmother would laugh with me.

Michelle Goering is happiest when she’s writing—or singing and playing guitar. She’s an introverted chatterbox with a background in publishing, married and the mother of twin college-age sons. A San Diego transplant from a Kansas farm, she’s published in Her View from Home, Sasee, and Christian Science Monitor