Good morning, hustlers! 

It might be presumptuous of me to assume you’re reading this in the morning. I love mornings. That’s usually when I absorb things best, especially words. Maybe we’re alike in that way? If not, that’s okay. 

This first entry feels like a morning of sorts. A new beginning. A sunrise on something I soon hope will become as beautiful as I’ve dreamed it to be. This creative project has been living rent-free in my messy mind for what feels like ages. 

Before it became a dream deferred, this all started as what should’ve been my senior capstone project when I was graduating from liberal arts school many moons ago. Long story short, I never got around to it.

Laugh A Little has been close to my heart for quite some time. I think that’s why I’ve taken so long to put it out into the world. That’s the thing about dreams—when you keep them to yourself, no one can hurt them. I continuously remind myself, though, that’s also the best way to prevent them from coming alive. 

So here we are. Seven years later, and now it belongs to you. What the hell is it, you ask? Right. Among the pages of a notebook I originally schemed all this up in, I wrote a simple mission statement: 

To create a place for people to be authentically themselves and lighten up the only way I know how—laughing.

Easy. Well, not really. At the time, this was going to be achieved through a little comedy club I planned to create on campus. I went to a private college, and can best describe the student body as “stiff as hell.” 

A lot of the other kids took themselves (and just about everything else) way too seriously. It always baffled me.  How could we all be so young in the playground that is New York City, yet so miserable most of the time?

I loved my fellow emo art kids, though. We shared a major, but we also shared conversations about our dreams and lives. Got lost together in the wonder of a painting at the MoMA. Thought outside the boxes everyone tried to put our young minds in. Threw down in the student union together after hours—just to shake out all the stress. 

Even though the rest of the student body called us the “arts and crafts degree,” we never really gave a fuck. At least we were having fun. I try to maintain this mindset, now as a real life person in a world that grows stranger and scarier each day. It’s not easy to choose joy, but it always seems to be worth it.

I’ve been a huge comedy nerd forever. I’ve been hooked since I was a kid, when my Uncle Mike showed me some old tapes of all the good stuff. The Blues Brothers. Classic Saturday Night Live sketches. His all-time favorite moronic Super Bowl Commercials. We’d sit for hours, cracking up at jokes I was too little to fully understand. My whole family is funny. But Uncle Mike knew how to LAUGH. 

I was only twelve when he unexpectedly passed away. After my mid-youth crisis following his death, it quickly clicked: how unpredictably volatile life is. 

I suddenly understood why he always went out of his way to make people laugh. It’s truly medicine. And it’s that good stuff you can’t get over-the-counter. Life’s too short (and far too unpredictable) to be miserable all the time. 

Ever since then, humor has been my greatest comfort. I’ve become what I call a “relentless optimist,” and consider my ability to find humor in any situation my super power. I feel my best when I’m making people laugh. And I chase that feeling any chance I get. 

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get a sense of what you were meant to do in life. Your true calling. I’m not a confident person in any sense of the word, but I’ve always been confident that my purpose is to spread joy.  

So. My goal with the theoretical comedy club at my stuffy college was to literally help everyone just chill the fuck out. To make light of it all. And to learn a thing or two about comedy in the process. I wanted to cultivate a safe, inviting environment for people to simply have fun.

The club never got off the ground. Not by choice, rather by circumstance. I was chasing some other dreams at the time, ones that fell into place when I least expected it. That kept me off campus far too much to fully commit to the idea. I continued to write down those ideas, though. And that felt like something.

I never had an issue making time to write. In between classes, on the subway, literally any time inspiration struck. It didn’t feel like a chore. It brought me instant gratification, and became therapy of sorts.

No matter how busy, overwhelmed, or lost I’ve felt, I have always found solace in writing. Whether it be my arsenal of feelings journals dating back to middle school, or a litany of unfinished comedy sketches from college. Writing has and continues to be the constant in my life.

Sometimes words just overflow up and out of my fuzzy brain, and I can’t be still until they’re out onto a page. Like lightning in my brain, only alleviated by the soothing embrace of putting pen to paper. My words falling like rain.

I read my old journal entries for fun sometimes. You might say that makes me a narcissist. I say that makes me introspective. I mean, what better way to learn about yourself than studying your own streams of consciousness?! Call it what you will—it’s a fun way to see how much you’ve grown, in the little ways that change between passing days.

Anyhoo. I’ve noticed one motif in my writing, where I casually flip between a tone of “I’m just a girl” who’s working out her feelings, to a strong-ass woman writing a self-help book for a troubled audience of endless proportions.

I don’t know who she is. I don’t know where she came from. But that bitch is live, giving the self-help seminar of your dreams. She has lived a thousand lives. And she’s finally going to guide you towards taking ownership of yours. And yet, a few paragraphs later, she’s the same girl who’s entirely confused about what it even means to be a person.

I don’t know why this is a thing or what that’s all about.

Looking back…I’ve been writing this way for most of my “adult” life. It happens (at least once) in just about every entry since I was 17. I guess I’ve always been predisposed towards helping people. Even if that’s giving my best advice to an imaginary audience, in a journal I know damn well is private. 

It might be a little crazy to talk (write?) to yourself, but I firmly believe all the best people are *a little* crazy. 

Truthfully, while it’s kind of embarrassing to admit, there’s actually a method to my mania. Or at least a half-baked reason behind the signature tone shift in my personal journals. I discovered it in one of my earlier entries, when I first moved to New York City. 

Each year I spent away at school in the city, I would return home to Michigan for the summer. Surely to recharge my spiritual battery. After a year of getting your ass beat by NYC, a little rest is necessary for survival. I spent those lazy, hazy days in my hammock reading. Taking naps in the backyard with my dogs. Or somewhere in the trees with a journal and pen. 

I felt so much wiser after my time living in the big city as a little human. But at the ripe age of 19…well yeah. I didn’t exactly have anyone to bestow my newfound “wisdom” upon. 

It’s that cliche curse of being young: you see the world in a different light, but everyone tends to discount you as some stupid kid. Classic. I’ll always be a little angsty like that. Nevertheless, it sure explains my chronic talking to myself via journal.

I think this inexplicably confident narrator is hoping that one day, when I’m dead and gone, someone might find my journals. Grandchildren. A widowed husband. A complete stranger at the estate sale of my future home. Literally anybody. 

My thought is that someday, someone might find themselves flipping through the pages of my journals. Reading my musings, I hope they might feel less alone. Because if one thing’s for sure, in my very short time here, I’ve learned that life makes absolutely no sense. And that can be isolating.

It seems that whenever you get comfy, a gust of fate comes to shake the essence of your existence. At least in my experience, whenever I’m feeling super confident in what I’m doing or where I’m at in life, something always comes around to rock my shit. Giving me no choice but to start all over again.

I’m not sure if that’s universally felt. Maybe I’ve just been dealt the hand of comically cruel luck. Either way, it makes for some good stories!

I’ve gradually learned to find comfort in the uncertainty. Uncertainty means your mistakes are short-lived. Uncertainty means there’s a new beginning waiting just around the corner. Uncertainty is scary. Sure. 

It’s a real bitch most of the time. But truly…how liberating is that uncertainty?!Nothing is certain. Nothing is forever. Therefore, nothing really matters all that much. We will be alright. 

I try my best to stay grounded by these mantras. Especially as someone who tends to overthink her existence every other minute. But the first time I truly felt free? When I finally surrendered to the uncertainty. 

Through all that soul searching—I’m still searching—writing has perpetually proven to be the only thing that helps me make sense of this great, big adventure we call life. 

Now, after a lifetime of writing to myself, I figure instead of waiting for someone to maybe find my journals when I die…what if I just use the infinite possibilities of the internet to share my writing with folks while I’m still here?

So, humble reader, I now invite you to join me in that conversation. I’m creating a place to share my own stories. To share stories of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. To share stories about this wild life we’re living. All in high hopes that we can figure it out together. 

Until next time,