Your laugh is an explosion. I’d heard of it, but I’d never heard it, before that night. The first time I heard it, I was embarrassed. Sitting in the front row, surely everyone could hear and see you, slapping your knee and rocking back and forth, laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe or see. Laughing too hard at moderately funny jokes, and I was embarrassed. Because that right there, that enthusiasm, wasn’t something I was used to.

I had been asleep. I was used to being bored, to waiting and wishing and going through motions. You grabbed me and you threw me full force, out of my slow motion life, and right into experience, full of loud laughter, body rocking back and forth. I was scared, but I gave you my trust and you gave me your hand, holding me the entire way. When we met you dazed me with lights dancing in my eyes, and since then you haven’t really stopped dazing me.

Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with that laugh. Somewhere along the way, I began to laugh along.