YOU BECOME.

It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. Margery Williams

As most of you already know, I did a thing this weekend. I stood on a stage and told some jokes to a room full of friends and strangers and survived. I’ve been in a comedy writing workshop for the last few months, working on this material with a group of hilarious women who blessed me with their black magic wands and made me into someone I had forgotten I could be.

I’ve always loved to make my people laugh and grew up going to local community theater camp and classes where we worked on improv and practiced performing little skits and storytelling bits on stage. I knew right away that I loved the spotlight and figured out just as fast that sometimes that kind of love can come with some pretty serious shame. The class clown always gets punished, you know? And sent to sit in the back of the room where they must learn to resist the evil need to be “the center of attention”. It’s hard out there, kid, and you best take it seriously. Nobody likes a ham.

Imagine my surprise when I started to see that some “hams” hadn’t listened to that well-meaning advice and made whole lives out of being funny and loud, out of stepping in front of the camera and speaking up. Who knew? For a whole heap of typical reasons it seemed to make more sense for me to sneak around in the shadows, on the sideline of things, writing stories for other more capable and confident people to perform. So it goes.

The other night an old friend from early elementary school texted me on my way to the club. “You are the first human that made me realize that funny is my favorite thing in a person. You got this.” We hopped on a call for a quick minute as I crept nervously into the lot and I let her remind me of all the things that I used to be before life snatched up some of the best things about me. By the time we hung up I was back home in my body.

We’ve all had a hard couple of years and it felt so good to stand up in front of that sweet little crowd and give them something to laugh at. It was wonderful to see so many sincere smiles again - especially my own.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FIRST FEW SECONDS OF MY ACT

Until next time, friends: tell the truth, take no shit and listen hard enough to laugh a little (even at yourself).

Here we go,

Anne