Dec 17, 2025
Somewhere along the way, I became very serious. Maybe it happened gradually, like when you’re reading a book and the light dims, but you don’t notice until you’re squinting. Perhaps it was the effort to fit in when I never truly felt like I belonged. Maybe it was marrying too young and learning the math of rent and groceries before I learned the math of my own heart. Maybe it was all of it at once: a life where growing up became a mask I forgot how to remove.
Seriousness can be sneaky. It often appears as a responsibility, dressed in a Hugo Boss pantsuit and carrying a Gucci bag. It convinces you there’s too much to do, too many people to care for, and too much at stake to be silly. It suggests that laughter is a luxury when in reality, it’s a lifeline. I can now look back and see the moments I put my laugh in the closet “for later,” but later never came. Money got tight, expectations grew loud, belonging felt conditional, and humor—my passed-down, generational language—began to sound like a dialect I wasn’t allowed to speak.
I notice as I write this that I feel grief, but there’s tenderness too. Because I understand now that the seriousness was a way of protecting myself. My ego was trying to keep me safe. It wanted me to be taken seriously, especially in rooms where I already felt like an outsider. It just didn’t realize that funny and devoted can exist together in the same person, that respect and play are not mutually exclusive, and that the soul needs a window cracked open to fresh air to breathe.
Lately, I’ve been practicing a small act of rebellion: reopening the window. I realize that humor isn’t the opposite of depth; it’s what helps our lungs expand as we explore it. The body recognizes this before the mind does—just one genuine laugh and the shoulders relax, the jaw unclenches, and the space around us feels bigger. Even grief loosens enough to allow love to speak. Although I'm being playful privately, I’m giving myself some indulgence, like singing a silly song while folding laundry or trying out little private jokes while driving. I consciously make space for my younger self to come into the light and share her needs.
I’ve also noticed that I silence my laughter to be accepted. The spaces where I edit myself so carefully that joy isn’t allowed in. The truth is, I don’t want to be invited into rooms where I have to trade wonder for worthiness. I like the belonging that makes room for a snort-laugh, for the comic timing of everyday grace: the Cardinal or butterfly showing up when I need a sign, the “out of the mouths of babes” moments that remind us the universe can trip over its own shoelaces, too.
If you, like me, have lost your laughter in the pursuit of being a “serious adult,” here’s what I’m trying: I give myself one daily task to find a small moment of joy—just thirty seconds, no more. I post a funny meme on social media and wait for the response (it turns out those posts get the most responses). I watch something that makes me giggle and let it serve as medicine. I leave room for play in conversations, even when they are difficult.
Maybe I haven’t really lost my sense of humor after all. I believe it waited for me while I did what I thought I needed to do. Today, I choose to bring it back into the room with my entire life—the work, the bills, the grief, the pond outside the window, the people I love, and the person I’m still becoming. Seriousness can stay; it has a purpose, but it no longer leads. I’m giving part of it back to the one who knows how to crack a joke at the perfect moment, who makes meaning feel lighter without making it smaller, and who remembers that joy is not a betrayal of pain—it’s proof we’re still alive.
Here’s to rediscovering the laughter we’ve stored away. Here’s to letting it lead us home.
Cathy J. Yuhas – RN, Certified Death Doula, Founder of Dying Matters, LLC
https://dyingmatters.llc
Photo credit : Mark Daynes
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