By the end of April when we were on lockdown for what felt like 8000 days, a lot of my social media friends had to have thought I lost my mind. First, on Monday they scroll up on me with overdone lips expressing my inspiration for the Kardasians, I might need to add that is totally out of character. On Tuesday I was trying to sell everyone a face slimming headband. On Wednesday I was dressed like my husband, facial hair and all, swooning about how I missed him so, which was true, I did miss him terribly. (He was deployed with FEMA as a EMS worker helping out in New Jersey.) So By Thursday when I pulled off a duet with him and I singing Picture by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow with photos of Ed from 90 Day Fiancé, Before the 90 Days in the background, I am sure they were about to send the police over for a well check.
I appeared to have lost all the marbles I had left.
Meanwhile the same nonsense was going on with my friends social media page. First a ridiculously hashtagged obnoxious fitness post, then a post about make-up and skin care with hands that weren’t her own, next she was recommending sardines and anchovies for health and eating them on video trying not to gag…and her finale was offering Zoom hip-hop lessons for $150 a session.
The comments on our posts were all in favor of our newfound insanity, sprinkled in with a few unsure of what was happening, not to be forgotten was texts from mutual friends saying, “Ok what are you two up to?”
On Friday we let everyone know via a video I made on the TikTok app (with much help from my 15 year old daughter) that the past week we were in a game of virtual dare. We let everyone know that during hard times of uncertainty and frustration, and just an overwhelming sense of what the heck is going on, a dose of laughter was needed for everyone.
During quarantine we talked on Marco Polo app daily and we had hit a really hard time. I had experienced some losses, my husband was far from home on the front lines with Covid-19. He was calling home with hard stories and I was stuck home with 5 kids, working and “teaching” my 5th grader math (gah) and trying to keep our home not a total disaster. I had hit a limit of totally overwhelmed. My sweet friend made us dinner one night and and shared with me her proposal to take our minds of the hard stuff and hopefully do the same for all our friends and family via social media.
Our week long game of virtual dare was so much fun. Our brains got a new job! Our creativity was being put to work! Our friends were enjoying our videos and we have had many encore requests. As the world very slowly emerges back to normal, whatever that ends up looking like, we were reminded that hard times will always happen. Life will always throw us curves and challenges, but it is also important to know that laughter is a medicine. Laughter is healing. Laughter brings joy and in times that seem the darkest, joy is the most well received gift.
