I just remembered what I had lost a while back – my sense of humor!

There are no two ways about it:  I have been moping, for quite a while.  Not that I have been especially weepy or overly dramatic in general, just that I have been way too serious about most everything for a very long time.  I see that now.  Donald Trump made me see that.

This election has sucked me into the 24-hr news network again, after going cold turkey years ago for my own sanity and for those around me.  Bernie has inspired me.  My son & I watched daily as his campaign progressed, cheering him on at every turn.  Now that it’s fairly clear that Bernie is not going to win the nomination, I’m still finding it difficult to break away from the updates and the pundits.  Despite feeling angry more often then not at what I’m hearing on tv, I still listen in to hear their latest outrage.  Today I realized that it’s ALL outrageous.  All the candidates, all the mock outrage of the pundits, and all the fear mongering of the ‘expert’ guests weighing in… it’s  all outrageous.  Donald Trump is the worst thing to happen to the USA?  I highly doubt that.  Truth be told, he makes me laugh.  And I had quite forgotten how to laugh, so I can’t fault him for that.

Today he was characterized as a misogynist because he had said in an interview with Howard Stern years ago that “it’s hard for a flat chested woman to be a 10”.  So what?  Howard Stern wouldn’t have been so popular over the years if no one listened to his show.  The opinions of Stern or Trump do not make it so, they’re just opinions.  If people are so outraged at those sorts of comments, why is there a booming plastic surgery industry?  Anyone who believes that women get breast implants for anything other than attracting men (or reconstructive surgery after medical issues, which is off topic here) is deluding themselves.  What exactly is the objection?  That Trump has opinions?  That he says his opinions aloud?  That he didn’t anticipate running for office decades ago and censor his comments in a more politically correct manner?  That he still doesn’t?  Maybe people ought to consider taking the giant stick out of their collective asses and just take themselves, and Donald Trump, a little less seriously?

I’m not a huge Trump fan.  I’m still loyal to Bernie, and I believe in most of the same things that Bernie does.  But I don’t despise Trump the way many others seem to.  He’s an Alpha Male.  They tend to be a bit narcissistic and outrageous by nature, as well as arrogant and unapologetic.  But they have some wonderful qualities too.  They are protective and competent men, confident and proud.  My husband was an Alpha Male, and I absolutely adored him.  You just have to learn how to deal with them and they can be the most memorable people you will ever know.

I’ve been moping because I miss my husband more than I ever would have thought possible.  I miss how mismatched we were and yet how well we meshed together.  Mostly I miss the laughter.  The main reason we initially liked each other and certainly the main reason we stayed together all those years was because we could make each other laugh.  We had more than our share of hardships and challenges:  his two bouts with throat cancer; his being critically wounded in a vehicle accident and the year that it took for him to be able to walk again;  his vicious and vindictive ex-wife who made it her mission to try to prevent him ever having one moment of happiness and all that went along with that, just to name a few.  We raised four kids together, three of them teenage girls at the same time!  There was always yet another challenge added to the pile and never nearly enough money, or nearly enough time… but we could always make each other laugh, and that’s how we got through it.  On the day he died, I sat for many hours in the ER with him, at the foot of his bed.  They had him hooked up to machines and I couldn’t get any closer, so I sat at the foot of the bed and held his foot as I would his hand if I could have reached it.  He wasn’t able to speak but he did have a dry erase board to write on and I had become much better at lip reading by then too.  We laughed and we cried a lot that day.  Alpha Males aren’t big on crying, so it’s particularly heartbreaking when they do.  I think I’ve spent too much time thinking about that and not enough remembering the humor and the laughter.

Sometimes I watch video clips of Donald Trump’s latest ‘offense’ and I have to laugh.  My husband would have laughed too.  He probably would have agreed with some of Trump’s opinions too, even though I know he would have been a Bernie supporter like the rest of our family.  He definitely would have found humor in the alarmists and the mortally offended anti-Trumpers.

Do I think a president who makes you laugh is the best choice?  No, but my first choice isn’t going to be President.  Adversity gives us three choices:  laugh, cry, or get angry.  Given my life experiences and what I know to be effective, I’ll take the laughter.  My son & I will make a big bowl of popcorn and settle in to watch the general election debates, while we wait for fellow Americans to get their heads out of their asses and start voting for real change in this country.  It’s inevitable.