So I am giving myself permission to feel funny again.....

it is a weird thing in life to say but it is truly how I feel. I know my inner monologue like "I look sexy" or "am hilarious" usually those feelings exude on the outside if I believe them on the inside. For the last year and a half funny was something I did not let myself have. I performed stand up for the first time on February 28th, 2007 and I loved it. The second time I did it, I bombed but still loved it and the whole time I thought..."this is bombing and I am still alive".
I never dreamed of being Eddie Murphy or Ellen but I did love the idea that people got my point of view and could laugh with me and that was it, after a few years I realized the magic part if I had fun, the audience had fun and that transcended to all of  life , my inner monologue being the outer one.
Stand up really helped me find my true voice my personal feelings, thoughts, opinions, and helped to turn some of my most tragic moments in life into something wonderful..laughter....I mean how magical is that? Pretty f'ning amazing, if you ask me.
Almost three years ago, a car drove through my mom's living room while I sat with her on the couch watching "Damages" on the dvr. We were both physically fine but her stress level flew into overdrive and anything that may have been part of her aging timeline became her own personal life cliff notes. First they thought she had "post traumatic stress" and I took her to speech therapy, therapy therapy, a neuropathologist, etc. Then there were several MRI, and cat scans and after a year of trying to find out why my other wise highly intelligent mother who read a book a week was now putting underpants in her jacket pockets and wearing ten scarves at a time. I was just trying to know what to do for her.

I have an older brother who is an accountant, married with three sons and was not my mom's legal choice to make her decisions. I was, I tried to be on her side and rationalize what was happening and to be honest, on my own personal whiny side, before the car drove through I finally came out of the closet and admitted being gay so....well the whole panties in her pocket were just another detail in the already "what the f* is happening?" part of life.
Oh right the point of this. My mom moved in with my brother's family for a year and for that year they were amazing and I tried to make the best decisions I could and she got worse and finally in March of 2011 a doctor said your mom has "aggressive advanced Alzheimers" and those words seemed to say...just like when they said in 1996 about my dad "fourth stage glioblastoma" ...FINAL. They sounded final and all of the excuse making of why my mom suddenly only will eat pancakes and wanted to meet my girlfriend at the time (now wife) at 3am only wearing a sweater seem more real. Real being honest...honest that this was serious and at her stage things were only going to get worse. They did fast and by September she passed away and everyday I miss her and the idea of doing stand up seemed ridiculous. It is funny in the last year and half of my life I have felt the happiest and the saddest. My first best friend, my mom, past away from something that was hard to understand and hard to fight and manage. I also married my new best friend my partner in life and I missed my mom most on our wedding day knowing she wouldn't want to miss it for the world. It is the way life works I guess, I get it......it just took me a bit to want to make people laugh again. Because it took me a bit to laugh again. I feel ready lately though because I believe in the power of laughter and well I got the funny in me. So with this new year...I am performing more and having fun also getting back to my skinny jeans----turns out even when I am happy I like butter!!
Happy New Year everyone and thanks for reading!!! xo Vicki