Have you lost your joy? Day 2

Her laugh gets quieter-and shorter. You can learn a lot from a laugh. When a woman’s joy is thinning, her laugh starts to land lower. Shorter bursts, fewer crinkles around the eyes, more ‘that’s funny’ without the sound to match. Humor becomes something she observes, not inhabits.

I noticed this with an old friend from my office days. We used to get the giggles over nothing, the kind that leaves you wiping tears with the back of your hand. Years later, at lunch, her smile was there but the laugh didn’t quite leave the runway. We aren’t short on funny stories; we were short on east. We spent the next few meetings telling strictly ridiculous tales on purpose-embarrassing cooking mishaps, failed DIY projects, my infamous attempt at assemnbling a flat-pack shelf without the instructions. Her laugh warmed back up once her nervous system remembered what safe felt like.

If this is you: put something genuinely silly on the menu-farce, slapstick, a draft podcast. Joy doesn’t mind lowbrow; it minds absence.