Sense of humor

I've never had a girlfriend whose parents liked me.  That statement is still true to this day.  Chris was no exception.  Her parents hated me.  I would have too if I were them.

I sealed the deal one night.  Chris and I rented movies.  She liked to rent movies and just stay at the house and hang out.  That was fine by me.  I had no problems having her all to myself.  One of the movies we rented was Faces of Death.  It’s a classic movie with nothing but scenes of people or animals losing their lives.  It has all kinds of weird stuff in it.  Anyways, her parents were gone and weren't going to be home till later.  Trust me we made sure we handled business well before her parents got home.  She was very careful about her parents not knowing about her sexual activity.  What parents wouldn’t be concerned about this?  Well, besides my mother that is.

The movie was about over when her parents got home.  We were laying on the floor in the living room.  They came in and sat on the couch to watch the end of the movie with us.  Gossiping about how weird of a movie it was.  A scene came on where a guy jumped out of an airplane.  His parachute didn't open.  He plummeted all the way to the ground.  When he hit the ground a huge cloud of dust appeared in the air.  Not like a mushroom cloud from a bomb, but like a balloon being blown up.  It was a big ball of dust.  Then all of a sudden you see this mangled figure come flying back up out of the dust cloud. 

The dude bounced.  He literally bounced off of the ground.

No joke, I have quite a laugh.  My laugh can be heard quite well and it stands out more than a bit.  I could not stop myself from laughing.  It was hilarious.  He bounced again!  The dude bounced twice.  I had tears in my eyes.  Her parents just sat there and looked at me.  To them it was not funny at all.  Someone had just lost their life.  Needless to say, they never liked me and were glad to see Chris and I break up.

I've always had a different sense of humor.  I cannot help but laugh when people fuck themselves up.   Instantaneous laughter.  I recently watched a video where a guy tried to do a backflip but landed on his face.  One of those videos that goes viral on YouTube.  I laughed till I cried, just re-watching it over and over.  So funny.

Years later, in my mid-twenties, I found myself in the presence of the man who abused me the most as a child.  It was my younger brother’s wedding.  His father.  I was suffering this man’s presence for my little brother.  All my brothers were there.  She was there too.  The whole family was there.  My little brother would have been very hurt if I did not show up for his wedding.

You know how it is at weddings.  Prior to the event everyone is hanging out socializing.  There was a group of guys standing around talking, telling stories.  Small talk.  Douche bag was telling a story.  There were like six or seven people standing around listening.  I don't remember what he was saying, but he was talking about someone getting hurt.  He and I were the only two that laughed.  We laughed at the same time, in the same way.

I doubt anyone else noticed my face turn white.  I felt sick.   There was this man standing in front of me who had practically ruined my life and when he said something really messed up, I spontaneously laughed.  I was sickened.  I wanted to murder him on the spot.  Just beat him to death with my bare hands right where he stood.  When this event happened I was devoted to not be like those who had raised me, yet there I was, laughing out loud at someone getting hurt; just like him!  This man is lucky to be alive.

I realized right then that my sense of humor had been given to me.  I wasn't really researching yet so I had lots of unanswered questions.  I laugh at the most morbid of things because of why?  It seems that humor is passed on.  It seems to be a learned behavior.  Even now, after all of my research I cannot explain it fully.  Where is the boundary between the stars imprint at birth and the molding of one’s environment?  There is no boundary.  It is all meshed together.  A definition of the terms cannot actually be given.  There seems to be no solid ground to stand on.  No one way. 

In my thirties my brothers and I went to a comedy club.  We were the only ones really laughing at the opening comedian.  We thought he was funnier than the main event.  He was saying messed up stuff and we were dying laughing.  The rest of the place was not laughing so much.  Josh and I talked about that too, later.  He is self-conscious about it just like I am.  The depth of imprinting done by parents is beyond comprehension. 

Somehow this man imprinted on me a morbid sense of humor.  He taught me how to be cruel.  How many other things did he imprint on me?  How do I undo it? 

How does one undo all of that?

One picks and chooses it seems.  I decided that laughing at these things is not actually hurting anyone so it is not worth the effort it would take to undo it.  Undoing something that deep, which goes that far back into one’s life, takes an enormous amount of hard work.  That kind of change requires constant internal vigil.  It's not hurting me or anyone else to laugh about these things. That guy who bounced off the ground is dead after all.  Harsh as it may sound what difference is it to him if I laugh or not?

The hardest part was letting it go.  I had to accept that no matter what I did I was going to be like those who raised me in some ways.  I had to accept that there is nothing I can do about it.  It was a bitter pill to swallow.  I had to be okay with it or I would forever feel flawed and broken. 

Who knows?  I could have been born with a morbid humor and just happened to share it with him.  But why do my brothers have it to?  How did they get it?

The things he imprinted on me that did hurt others, those things I got rid of, or changed them into something good.  I put all my energy into getting those things taken care of.  In light of all the crap I had to deal with, my sense of humor was just not worth the energy.  Who cares if someone doesn't like what I laugh at.

I hadn't taken that turn when I was sixteen.  I wasn't trying to undo it yet.   That night at Chris' house I realized I was fucked up on a different level.  Her parents made me feel fucked up by the way they talked to me. The way they looked at me made it very clear.  They could tell I was a fucked up kid.   I knew what was up by how they treated me.  I saw my fuckedupedness in a new light.  It was another piece of straw on the camel’s back.  It was another event tightening the spiral. 

Why did she let this man do this to me?  That my hatred of her was greater than my hatred for him saved him.  That my hatred for both of them was greater than my hatred for myself saved me.