Dumb and Fun

There are no awards for having a terrible time.

A week or two ago, I was messaging my friend Margaret online, when I told her some good news. I was in England, she was in Charleston. It was 6pm here; it was 1pm there. I’d had a glass of wine. She was excited about my news, and was like “Have you told (our other friend) Sabrina?” And I was like “No.” And she was like “I feel like we should call her.”

I haven’t talked to Sabrina on the phone in…years? I mean, I talk to her, but via text and the internet. But, as previously mentioned, I’d had a drink. And the sun was out and all of Margaret’s ideas are good on any given day. So I started dialling both of them in on a group call and Margaret was like “This is so dumb and fun” and I was like: “Dumb and Fun is the motto of my 40s.”

I was joking (and did I mention the wine?), but…I think dumb and fun is the motto of my 40s?

I am no shortage of serious and melancholic. I think about death most days, and talk about it most days too. That sounds depressing but for me, it’s not; last night I was watching a short documentary about spiritual teacher, Ram Dass, on Netflix. In it, he said:

Keeping death present in your consciousness, as one of the greatest mysteries and as the moment of incredible transformation, imbues this moment with added richness and energy that otherwise is used up in denial.

There I go, talking about death again. But that’s kind of how I see it.

Anyway.

When I was in North Carolina last month, I met up with a group of my best girlfriends from college. We all now have at least one child who is a teenager, which is frankly terrifying. I hadn’t seen my friend Emily’s 13-year-old daughter, Larkin, since 2021. When Emily started describing our relationship to Larkin, she said something like: “You know Brantley? Faith is my Brantley.” Then she turned to me and said “Brantley is her friend that is always up for doing crazy things with her.”

I said, “I’m your fun friend?!?!”

I think I needed that reminder. Because sometimes, I get bogged down with the mess of life, and I’m often super-serious, and I want to write about death and spirituality and transformation…but I also just want to be dumb and fun.

Like group-calling two friends I’ve never group-called in the middle of the day while they’re at work and I’m 3/4 of the way through a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

Like dropping it like it’s hot when Usher’s “Yeah” comes on at any given social event.

Like writing a novel that has some serious themes but also has some laugh-out-loud moments (at least, they make me laugh out loud) and a few sexy kisses, heyooo.

Like fully embodying my whole Self, who’s equal parts deathly serious and utterly ridiculous.

Often, I think we believe that embracing spirituality means being stoic and deep all the time. But spirituality is really about fully inhabiting our humanity - slurping up every drop of what the human experience has to offer us - and that includes the parts that are really stupid and light and hilarious.

Life is so short and sometimes so terrifying. When I was younger, I lived like there was some kind of award for the person who suffered the most. I really believed I shouldn’t enjoy anything too much because enjoyment was a borderline sin - what God really wanted was for me to be miserable; to always do the opposite of what I wanted to do, in order to build character. So even though I had enough fun for Emily to think of me as her fun friend, there was a voice deep in my psyche that told me I should feel kind of guilty about it. Like somehow, being fun was a distraction from all the deep spiritual work I should be spending my time doing.

Fast-forward a few years, and I’ve hit the bottom of the pit where grief and mortality live and I’ve never been more certain that fun is an integral part of the deep spiritual work. We go through so much suffering in our lifetimes that is completely unavoidable: illness, grief, etc. Why in God’s name do we insist on creating more of it for ourselves?

This just in: there’s no reward for Most Unnecessary Suffering Inflicted Upon Oneself…

But I might start giving out badges for Most Dumb and Fun.

Proof that I’m Dumb and Fun - I spent 20 minutes making this in Canva.

Tell me: what dumb, fun things have you gotten up to lately?

xx

Faith