A Good Healthy Wail
My college roommate Christine was a wailer. When she was upset or things went wrong, she would plop herself down on the bed, close her eyes, turn the corners of her mouth down pathetically, and let out a long, medium-pitched, mournful wa-a-a-illlll . . . usually for intentional comedic effect. And that was generally the effect it had. I laughed. Anyone else in the room laughed. We would go wrap our arms around her, gushing melodramatic words of sympathy and comfort. And eventually we’d all be rolling on the bed together, giggling.
It wasn’t until I tried this trick myself that I realized
what a genius this girl was. Once, in a sudden moment of my own great
exasperation and distress, I erupted into a "Christine", scrunching up my face with a
dramatic wail of at least twenty seconds. And lo and behold . . . I genuinely
felt better! The tension in my body relaxed. The screaming in my brain quieted
for a moment. Suddenly, I felt capable of handling the situation.
It was quite the discovery, people!
At least two or three times, when my very young daughters
were upset about something that seemed silly and I was upset about something significantly
less silly and I felt particularly hopeless about solving any of the problems
at hand and completely overwhelmed with the emotions they wrought in me and
afraid I was going to do something horrifying like hit one of them because I
honestly didn’t know what else to do for God’s sake and would somebody just
please make it all STOP . . . I let out a wail. Although "wail" is kind of an
understatement. I literally screamed at the top of my lungs and jumped up and
down, shaking my head and swinging my fists in the air like a three-year-old having a temper
tantrum. And it lasted for probably a full minute until I had exhausted every ounce of energy the pain had built up in my body and my spirit.
When I opened my eyes and looked at my girls through my
disheveled hair, they were staring at me wide-eyed. Then after a few seconds .
. . they absolutely fell all over each other in hysterical laughter.
Which is exactly what we all needed.
We all know that laughter is healing, right? I remember a
news story when I was young about a famous person who had an incurable form of cancer
(or something – I was young, I don’t remember the details). He had prescribed
for himself a certain number of hours every day of watching old comedies and
laughing maniacally. He truly believed, having read a lot of research on the
matter, that laughter would extend his life. And it was working. He was
surviving and thriving.
I’m convinced that laughter – genuine, rich, belly-deep laughter
– doesn’t just make you feel better. It actually makes you
better. If you do it right. And the same with wailing. I mean, there’s a whole
book of the Bible called Lamentations, y’all. Look it up: it means a “passionate
expression of grief or sorrow”. And the Bible is FILLED with laments, people,
as if to give us models for how to do it well.
You turned my wailing into dancing, Psalm 30 says (or
giggling, or rolling on the floor guffawing). But that process starts with the wail. To paraphrase the Preacher in Ecclesiastes,
there is a time to suck it up and a time to let ‘er loose and bawl . . . and
let God do his magic through our honesty and vulnerability.
Thus the group text I ranted in while prepping for my
colonoscopy (you can read more about that here). I was tired, I was grouchy, and I did not think I was going to get
through this ridiculous process without a lot of comedic bitching about it (my mature, modern woman version of a Christine-style wail). And my friends answered back with ROFL
emojis and their own snarky comments and reminded me that life is bigger and
better than this moment. This was therapy. This was healthy for me -- maybe for all of us.
We need to laugh. We need to cry. And sometimes it’s okay if
those two are kind of the same thing.
Comments
Post a Comment