I’m not going to apologize for my humor anymore.

 My whole life I’ve had a very dry and edgy sense of humor, and with it I have attracted many close friends and also a couple enemies.  I was the most sarcastic kid on the playground, often getting in little fights with the kids around me because of this.

Back in my salad days, as Shakespeare would call them, I didn’t understand why people would get so worked up about my jokes.  As I got older, I realized my sense of humor was more mature than the people around me. 

When they were still on bathroom jokes, I had moved on to bigger things.  I would impersonate celebrities and my teachers, I would make jokes about current events, it was smart humor but my classmates never got it. 

I was no class clown though.  I was fairly quiet in class, always paying attention and raising my hand.  At lunch though, I was on fire.  I would come up with little sketches that I would then act out to my unwilling group of friends.  I remember I had one about Panda Express that was a big hit.  I don’t remember what is was about at all but it was quoted for weeks.

When I got to middle school, things changed.  Maybe it was my sudden realization that I could be judged for being “out there.”  My proudest moment in middle school was in the 7th grade.  The 7th grade was a god awful year for me and honestly drowning is probably better than 7th grade but it did have one shining moment.

 For the first year in my middle school’s history they would be having a play. Not a musical, but a play. 

I was so pumped it was unbelievable.  When I would talk about the play people probably wondered who the hell gave this 13 year old girl so much sugar, but it wasn’t sugar I was high off of, it was the theatre. Cheesy as that sounds, it rang very true for 13 year old, slightly chubby me. 

When I first auditioned I was scared out of my mind.  I found out there was only 10 parts in the show we were doing and only 3 of those parts were for girls.  I did my best in the audition, which wasn’t surprising because I always do my best in the things I really care about.

A week later, when the cast list came out, I screamed.  I screamed out of joy because I got in.  I Lily, the awkward, sometimes accidentally insulting, braces wearing girl got into a real play.  Of course the play was awful, as you would expect it to be since the cast was completely made out of middle school outsiders, but I thought it was amazing.  I thought I was amazing. 

Every single show, when I heard laughs from the audience because of something I said, it filled me with so much joy.   At the cast party, the director gave out little speeches to all of the young actors.  When it came to my turn to be praised, the director simply told me how funny I could be.  It made a huge impact on me.

Never had I actually been told I was funny. I just told jokes and would occasionally get laughs. 

In high school I was on the improv team and would get up on stage every week.  I began to write little comedy scenes for myself and keep them in a file on my computer.  

Comedy is something really important to me, and I’ve started using it as a cover for the real things I’m feeling.  I am not defined as a person by the jokes I tell so stop judging me for my humor. 

Credit to NBC