My First Genuine Joke! Not Today Blog 6
Humour used to be my way of hiding my insecurities. I remember that day last year, where for the first time in my life my jokes felt genuine. Less funny, but me.
December 31st, 2019 Gili Trawangan, Indonesia
I’m running late. I got stuck in on a phone conference on my way to Sunset Point. Now I’m standing in a Coco Mart. The outside is too loud. New Year’s music is banging over the island.
I spot my friends on bean bags, watching the sun setting above Gunung Agung, Bali’s active volcano. I sit down and soon Bintangs are served. It doesn’t feel real. How did I manage to get my friends to come all the way from Germany to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Indonesia with me?
Ami, the child of the stars
Sunset Beach is quiet. My friend Alex talks about the book I gifted him a year ago – Ami, Child of the Stars. A Spanish book for children that I thought may help improve Alex’s Spanish skills. Copies in the English language are rare and expensive.
He explains that it is about a girl named Ami – a child from a more developed planet. Ami visits this young boy on earth to teach him about how people on her planet had found a way to evolve. Humans could do the same if they stopped wars and started to care more about the planet and its species. She guesses humanity might not be ready for the technology they are trying to push forward and how it might rather be destructive than helpful.
Humanity must come together and work together so that we may evolve.
It has had an impact on his perspective on life on earth.
2019 was a marathon
We don’t speak much. Watching the sun disappear behind this island is stunning. “Let’s all share our top two moments of 2019!”. Alex goes first telling about his trip to Central America. Climbing an active volcano belching lava and snorkelling with sharks in Belize.
My highlight was running the Tokyo Marathon 2019. The moment when my corral started walking, picking up speed and crossing the chip timing mats at the starting line. Being officially in the race. My first marathon. My first time in Japan. I was smiling throughout the first few miles recalling how I got the idea to run a marathon, biting through a tough marathon prep phase, organising the trip.
Forever one of my favourite adventures.
Chandler Bing
My second favourite moment of 2019 was that one Sunday in October. I came back from the barbershop and felt like a new person.
Not because of the haircut. For months I had been going through a rough patch mentally. I was wearing this heavy weighted vest. That day I was finally able to take it off. Mood changes affected me for weeks prior to that. I was in an excessively good mood or felt irritated. I caught myself feeling anger towards people who hadn’t done anything wrong. Even my mother.
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
Jalaluddin Rumi
I felt happy again. I don’t know how or why. But I did. Looking into the mirror after that haircut must have flipped a switch. The next few weeks were just awesome.
Humour used to be my way of hiding my insecurities. If you remember Friends, I was Chandler. Something must have healed inside me. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I felt like my jokes were really me. They felt genuine. I experienced this massive boost of self-confidence.
Why Not Today
Everybody is going through something.
Why not check on your friend today? Isolation must not drive us away from each other. Maybe you can lift someone’s mood today, it’ll lift yours too.
And if it is awkward – think of all the drunken nights out you have missed out in the last few weeks. You’ve avoided a lot of strange situations. You’ll get over this one.
Have a great weekend.
Xx
D
