Looking for the Lost Laugh

I recently returned from a great trip to New York City where I met my sister-in-law, Danea, and my niece, Amanda. Danea has been my best friend and confidante for 25+ years, since the birth of Amanda. Throughout the years, we have shared all of life, laughter, tears, fears, disappointments, joys, blessings...... We've never kept secrets from each other and have always loved and encouraged one another. Certainly, we have disappointed one another on occasion, but those times have been very, very few. God has blessed us with the kind of friendship that most in this world never experience, and I am overwhelmingly thankful for His blessing.

This trip was not our first to NYC or our first time to be together without the guys, but I noticed something different on this trip. While we were still close, still shared our deepest thoughts and wishes, there was something missing on this trip. As we were riding down the elevator, bags in tow, preparing to check out of the hotel, I realized that we were missing the laughter. We were missing the tears-streaking-down-the-cheeks kind of laughter, the laughter that cleanses one's soul, that takes on a life of its own. There were no naked flips onto the bed, no singing as we walked down the street, no getting so tickled that we just laid on the bed laughing.

Where was the laughter? Has life become so heavy, so full of worries, concerns, and to-dos, that there is no room for the can't-catch-your-breath laughter? How many weeks would we need to spend together, away from the realities of life, in order to experience that kind of laughter? Is it like the core of a head of lettuce, hidden beneath layer after layer of suffocating leaf? Does lack of laughter mean lack of joy? If so, hasn't God promised me that joy? Am I looking in all of the wrong places? Am I even looking?

Obviously, I don't have any answers, but I definitely have many questions. At the heart of this girl named Kitty is a girl full of laughter and joy, a girl who can make people feel good, who can make people laugh, who loves to laugh herself. I know she's in there; she couldn't just disappear. How does one go about looking for the lost laugh? I refuse to give up on it. I just need to find it again.