Someone sent me a message on my ask.fm yesterday, directing me to this article, and telling me that it's written for me and that I had to read it. So I did and I liked it a lot and I'm glad someone, somewhere thought of me while they were reading this.
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To the funny girl, thank you.
I'm a marshmallow — the only way I know how to cope with the hard stuff is to plunge head-on into sticky sweetness. I’m a bubblegum pink cliche of hugs and tiny notes of appreciation, the type you sleepover with when you want someone to fatten you up with words of affirmation. Cut me open and I’d bleed sugar. If you need a girl’s girl, come to me.
I am not a funny girl. Not the way you are.
I see how people are whenever they’re around you and I can’t help but ask what it feels like to be the one who brightens up a room. You are the party, she who catapults us into happiness. Everyone brings something wonderful to the table but you give us a reason to look forward to losing our breath. You give us a reason to revel in the idea of being reduced to stitches, caught in a fit of unbridled passionate laughter.
I know we belong to a strange economy, the kind where every girl sells everything they are for the chance to just be pretty. And that’s why you … well, you are something else entirely.
It takes intelligence and a familiarity with the world to be funny, to whip up puns and sidecomments like you were born to do it – and trust me,you were born to do it.
You were born with the gift to brighten people up, to plant sunflowers in their hearts, to change the mood of a room. You have the uncanny ability to override another person’s sadness just by being yourself and if that isn’t power, then I don’t know what is.
I am not saying a funny girl can’t be pretty; the two are not mutually exclusive. But the thing about the funny girl is that she isn’t caught up in the pretty. She knows that her looks are an extension, not an identifier. When the pretty runs out, she will not hang her head and feel defeated. The funny girl has stuff in her arsenal that is not tied to the flesh. Her essence never gets old.
I am glad that our culture is slowly changing, giving credit to women like Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler and Rebel Wilson (there are so many more to note!) who – to put it simply – make the world laugh. They are beautiful women brimming with wit and silliness and the refreshing fearlessness to make fun of themselves.
In truth, the world doesn’t need marshmallows like me anymore. The world needs people who will see them at their worst, on the edge of their bed, ugly crying in a pair of ratty pajamas, and for a brief moment, break the grief with a generous slice of humor. It is the new comfort food and as I see it, a class A magic act. At my saddest I have been grateful for the people who showed up and didn’t mind saying something ridiculous (or perhaps appalling!) just to make me feel a little better.
The funny girl is, in my mind, one of the most creative people on the planet. Don’t ever think you’re ordinary – you are not. Should I ever have a daughter, I’d love her to be just like you.
To the funny girl, I want you to know that I think you are made of stars. I think when God crafted you, He laughed you into existence, His eyes crinkling with delicious wonder at the mere idea of you.
To the funny girl, thank you. Thank you for existing.
