And They Laughed

You get on the plane, as you have likely 100 times or more. It doesn't feel particularly different this time, but you're traveling to a place you had never been before.

Planes canceled, okay. You get the next plane, takes forever to get to your hotel. Sleep for literally a few hours then off to meet a friend.

First night meet up with some other folks and you don't even consider that you've never met before. They're like family, we've known each other for so long, because we are each other.

First day of class, infectious laughter everywhere all before lunch. This is gonna be a fun course you think. Fun however, is only the tip of what's to come.

And they laugh. We go out for drinks and celebrate being together. And we laugh. So hard our guts explode, and it actually hurts. But it's been so long since we've all felt this way, even longer since we've met other people who laugh as much as we do.

See, for a lot of us we're the passionate ones. We're the crowd movers, the instigators, the fearless jumpers. Many of the times though, we are alone in this journey. People rely on us for support because they find extreme comfort in our strength.

This group was different though. We empowered each other, because we are each other. We laughed and stayed positive because we know what it's like to always have to be the happy person who makes others laugh. For at least two weeks though, we could live within each other's collective laughter.

I get my laugh from my dad and my mom. They are loud, and the life of the party. They don't understand what sadness is because most of the time they are super fun loving, insane, and could care less about most things. This zest for life is something I've always admired about my parents, and it's something I'm glad was passed on to me.

And they laugh! You can hear my parents from another town, they are so loud. And there I am as well. I'm reserved when I first meet people, and then after a few seconds I stop to care, and my laugh comes flowing strong and hard.

And this group, oh my goodness could we laugh. We were all like the kind of people that you hear laughing and can't help laughing as well because their laugh is so empowering, so encompassing, so genuine, and so so loud. Imagine a big group of us just like that, out on the town, every night drinking. That'd be us, and that is so nice.

For the first time in a long time, I felt like I had found family again. We all had different backgrounds and expertises, but we were able to relish in the fact that we were all very successful in what we've accomplished in our lives, and were able to be humble at the same time. We knew we are great, so there was no need to pretend like we were being interviewed. Instead, we let our rainbows shine, and our loud voices be heard unapologetically.

And we laughed. Up until the last minutes we were together, loud loud laughs. I'm sure many of us took planes back laughing as well.

I'm also certain that we were all heartbroken. Sometimes you have great experiences as such, and then it fades away. I hope that doesn't happen with this group, and I hope we remember to laugh with each other, knowing that even if at times we're laughing by ourselves, there's another one of us laughing just as loud in another part of the planet.

In each others thoughts, and in each other's lives, this was an awesome group of people to meet. I hope the best is yet to come for us. I really hope we can change things for the better with our collective professional laughter. Wishing all of us super good luck, and feeling content in the knowledge that meeting these people was exactly what I needed, right when I needed it.