Laughter

Monday, I went to my slightly delayed six-month checkup with my neurologist.  The nurse took my blood pressure, and when she told me what it was, I felt myself grin.  I couldn't stop it.  I asked her what it had been the last time I came in, and she checked the chart, told me.

The grin got bigger.

In six months, I've gone from running numbers so high my doctors wanted to put me on blood pressure medicine and/or some kind of anti-anxiety medicine to textbook normal or better.  That's worth grinning over, I think.

When I'd gone to see them in January, I was having at least two debilitating (i.e. - medicine required to stop them, somebody had to come get me from school because I was too sick to stay, too sick to drive) migraines a week.  I felt horrible all the time.

In the last month, I have had only two migraines at all, and both of those were during that last horrible, horrible week at my old job when so many bad things happened.

Last time, the consultation I had with the neuro nurse took a long time.  It was fairly solemn as we discussed the possibility of daily maintenance medicine to stop the headaches again, all the old terrible things like Topamax - which steals my words and my personality - and newer variations - some that would spike blood pressure, some that might make me lose both weight and hair, others that would definitely increase my appetite.  This time, I spent more time laughing and chatting with the nurse practitioner than we did discussing my treatment options.

My God, what a difference a change can make.

I can even give you the date things started to change.  I have a picture taken that day.  I was in a new Shakespeare First Folio scarf that I'd bought for the 400th anniversary celebration.  That was the day I decided to go take a chance and talk to the administrators at what would become my new/old school.  That was the day I finally admitted to myself after that conversation that change was possible.  I remember driving home down familiar roads talking to my mother.  I can remember feeling the first tiny tendrils of hope stir.

It's grown since then. Once I made the official decision to leave my old school, I found the number of migraines I was having dropped off sharply.  Other alterations followed.

I laugh again now.  I noticed it the other day.  I was walking Stella around the yard on one of her many daily jaunts, and she did something ridiculous, clown that she is, and I started laughing.  It felt a little strange, and I realized why.  I am not sure when it stopped, but I haven't laughed at things in a long time.

Now, I snicker at Stella and Tybalt's semi-stealthy stalking of one another.  I chortle at stupid puns on FB.  I laugh sometimes until I cry at geeky pins on Pinterest.  I get amused with myself and the guys I play with on Sunday nights when I can't get my crap together with the bass.  There's humor in the world again, and it feels so good.

Before those of us who were leaving got out of  my old school, there were some hateful comments made regarding the fact that I'm changing schools.  Much of it was just the usual backstabbing crap that went on constantly, but some of them were bold enough to say it to our faces.  Certain people were quick to tell me and the others who left to go where I'm going that nothing good awaited us because "you know how they are out there."

I really don't.  Not anymore.  Even though I graduated from the school to which I am returning, I haven't had anything to do with it for more than twenty years, so, no.  I don't know how they are. That whole statement infuriated me.  Some of the very same people who were so fast to judge based on a stereotype would follow up in the same breath with some complaint about how our school received criticism based on stereotypes, too.

Nothing is ever what we think it is from the outside.  I am certain there are differences.  The population makeup is different in percentage of ethic group, in balance of socio-economics, in setting (rural v. urban), and most importantly, in size (my new school will be about half the size of my old one).  What I refuse to believe is that people who do not live there, who do not have children attending that school, who do not teach at that school or know anyone who does, who likely have never seen the campus except for the sporting fields, are reliable sources of information about it.  This holds true for every place in the world.  We don't know unless we go to see it for ourselves.  If humanity could just hold on to that one idea and practice it, I wonder just how much ridiculousness and cruelty we could end?

I am sure there are going to be challenges, sources of frustration, things I would want to change.  As I've told people before, though, "There is crap everywhere.  You just have to figure out what of it you can deal with and what of it you need to get away from."  I figured out the last bit the hard way.

And, to be honest, even if the naysayers turn out to be right (which I do not anticipate happening), I still needed to go through the process of making this change.  I feel better, more hopeful, more at peace with myself right now than I have in....longer than I can remember.  I sing with the radio.  I write stuff.  I take care of my house, my self.  I cook dinner for myself, for my family.

I laugh.

If nothing else is ever gained from this change, by God, I laugh again.  That is enough.