A Funny* Thing Happened on the Way to 30

I used to be funny.

Maybe not of the hilarious kind, but I had a fair amount of humor up my sleeve.  In fact, my grandmother used to call me the Family Clown.  (Not because I was always throwing pies in people's faces or making balloon animals.  Although I did have some big red shoes...)

(And yes, my grandma was an expert on the topic.  Sort of.  Maybe.  Okay, not really, but I swear she wasn't bias toward me.  At.  All.)

Last year, when I told some other moms about my grandmother's nickname for me, I saw a couple of mouths drop to the floor.  Later, one mom admitted to me that she thought I must've come from a family of morticians**.  (Not because I am so unfunny, I hope, but because I was always so, ahem, serious quiet.)

So what happened?

Perhaps it was never there.  Or perhaps my stint of college matured it away. (ha)  Or perhaps I lost it on my way to becoming a mother.

In any case, I do not use funny as an adjective for myself.  I have no future in stand-up.  I will not be featured on SNL.  And I certainly will never qualify to be Kristen Wigg's sidekick.

But then, fairly recently, an acquaintance called me funny.  Not in the you-are-weird kind of way, but in the you-say-things-that-make-me-laugh kind of way.  Which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Why did this "being funny" thing become important to me?  Is it because I am now at thirty and looking for a way to connect my youth and putting up posters of early 90s heartthrobs and obsessing over Newsies is out of the question?  Unlikely, but possible.

Actually, I think that somewhere along my journey I have come to believe funny = fun.

And who doesn't want to be fun, right?

Whether or not this equation is true, I don't know.  (Actually, I don't even know if one thing equalling another is technically an equation.  But that's neither here nor there.)

All I know is, I've dusted off my joke book.  So watch out.

Not really, I only had a joke book when I was like 12, but I'm using it as euphemism for trying to bring a little humor back to myself and, as a natural side effect, all of you.

And for goodness sakes, if you don't think I'm funny, feel free to give me a pity laugh anyway.  (I may be thirty now but I still have a few insecurities leftover from my youth too.)






*pun intended
**this is not to imply that morticians are not or can not be funny or that all morticians are quiet or serious