I laughed today...

... and it felt so damn good.

I'm not talking about a giggle here. I'm talking about an honest to goodness, fetal-position-on-the-floor-of-the-Nipissing-hallway kind of laugh. I honestly could not stop. Well, that's not true... I stopped when I puked into a garbage can, it just hurt so much.

What sparked this? I can't tell you, as I refuse to put personal information about friends in my blog, however I do know why it was so... emotional.

Meaghan and I went to see Eva Osslo speak today in the theatre. I knew the speech was going to about the holocaust, but I never knew how much it was going to effect me. She began with the subject of bullying, relating high school bullying ("Stupid Jew") to the bullying that the Nazi's did. Evil versus Good she said, and Good will always win.

So many innocent lives were lost, we saw pictures of walking skeletons, piles of corpses, men being shot in the head, women being paraded around naked, and most heart wrenching of all, skeleton children, posing for the camera, to show the effects of the scientific tests they went through. All of this under the orders, and on prideful display, by the Nazi's.

Tragedy is just scratching the surface on this one. I wanted to cry, but I found myself so numb from her story that I couldn't. I wanted to go back in time and kill Hitler when he was sitting in jail. I wanted justice, revenge for what these people went through. Anything!

Instead, Eva told us that she had forgiven those who commited these atrocities against her. She has not, and can not, forgive the atrociteis done to those around her, the dead, the living, all the victims. That is not her place.

I left the theatre awed by Eva's strength, her power of forgiveness, and her bravery for sharing her story. I realized, above all, this one thought: No one has the right to feel sorry for themselves any longer. Chemical imbalance? Get pills. But unless you've been to Aushawitz, don't ever complain about anything ever again.

I left with a great deal of grief and depression, that we as humanity could commit such crimes. I went to rehearsal still a little bumed, but did my best to get over it and I managed not to start crying.

Things were all right, they really were, everything was going really well. That's when Lacey came over and told Meaghan and I the thing that set me off.

I laughed. I laughed so hard, my abdominal muscles were in pain. I couldn't stop myself. Here I was, just out of a Holocaust Survivor's lecture, and someone (they will remain nameless) has the audacity to threaten leaving the club because of personal issues, because they are "being used for sex". Their words, not mine.

I laughed when I should have been crying, that people can think they have such hard lives when they don't. They have food, they have water, their entire family wasn't just put to death in a fucking gas chamber!

So this is it. You got problems? Suck it up and solve them. Period.

You really don't understand how lucky you really are.