What I learned from stepping way outside my comfort zone & performing standup for the first time.
If you missed the blog last week, I highly recommend reading the story of how Paula Wyatt created an event, an Empowering Night of Laughter, in honor of her late father. The night is designed to help women experience fear by performing stand-up comedy and then successfully conquer it. After growing up in comedy clubs, she realized that stand-up is not in anybody’s comfort zone and wanted to create a platform for women to do something they would prefer not to do.
Last summer, I volunteered to be one of those 9 women after Barbara sent me the link. I instantly regretted the decision as fear and insecurity washed over me. What was I thinking performing stand-up? I’m not funny. I’ve never told a joke in my life! I’ve never had the gift of being able to recount a funny story to friends, it always ends with an awkward “I guess you had to be there” moment. Humor is not a skill I naturally have nor have ever considered developing. More so, I’m not even a big fan of traditional humor. I’ve never watched Seinfeld or laughed at classics like Anchorman. Sometimes dad jokes or the lines on a Taco Bell hot sauce packet make me laugh more than a professional comedian. This decision was certainly a mistake.
Despite all my hesitations and fear, I stayed committed to my decision until the organizer’s first zoom call, where I virtually got to meet the other women I was performing with. Instantly, I knew I had made the right choice in stepping outside my comfort zone. Paula was positive, empathetic, and immediately asked how many of us wanted to barf over our choice to participate and I realized I was not alone in my feelings. Paula was encouraging and shared some resources like Judy Carter’s “New Comedy Bible” and together we navigated the “how to” of creating a comedy set. We shared stories of our families, our careers, our childhoods, and our different lived experiences and life stages. This was definitely a personal highlight. I don’t think it gets better than women sharing their authentic stories with each other. It’s always feels like breathing oxygen to me and it’s one of the main reasons I wanted to help Dana continue the mom blog community she created with Momlando.
Fast forward a few months to December and my comedy set read more like a trauma dump than humor. I read the Comedy Bible but couldn’t complete a single exercise that required writing a joke or punchline. I still hadn’t figured out a way to “be funny”. When I practiced lines I had written to my husband (maybe the only person in the world who actually thinks I am hilarious) he would need me to explain why something was funny. Things were clearly not going well for me. My fear and imposter syndrome were back. If I didn’t have a set after 4 months of trying, how was I going to write one with less than a month left?
Everytime I sat down at my laptop in front of a blank page, all I could do was rant and rage. If I had the chance to be on stage in front of 200 people, I wanted to be able to slip a public service announcement into my set that post menopausal bleeding is almost always a sign of uterine cancer. The summer prior, I had lost my mother in law to uterine cancer and I couldn’t stop thinking about the shame she felt around her post menopausal bleeding. And I couldn’t stop thinking at the anger I felt about the shame she felt! I’m angry that as a society, we aren’t more educated about women’s bodies, which was a feeling that was made abundantly apparent after I first became pregnant six years ago. Why weren’t women and men educated on women’s bodies? Why wasn’t my husband, an otherwise educated person, aware and invested in asking his mom about her uterine health? Her uterous was his first home after all. Why was it ok for our government to regulate women’s bodies as if they are not attached to women fully capable of making the best decisions for themselves. Why was this discussion even allowed to happen? Why was birth control a woman’s responsibility? Why did we teach our young girls to be discreet about their periods? Why weren’t we better educating our young boys to care for girl’s bodies? Our reproductive cycle is the reason why any of us are on earth, why is it cloaked in shame. My questions about the injustices ran deep and my rant could go on and on. When all you have inside is rage, where is there room for humor?
My saving grace came from a Robin Williams, a comedian who did actually resonate with my young heart. It felt appropriate for my life that he would lend me the inspiration I needed. The late and great genius wrote that “Comedy starts as a spew, a kind of explosion, and then you sculpt from there, if at all. It comes out of a deeper, darker side. Maybe it comes from anger, because I’m outraged by cruel absurdities, the hypocrisy that exists everywhere, even within yourself, where it’s hardest to see.” These were the words I needed to hear, it was the reassurance to stay committed. I had the explosion of words that came every time I tried to write. I felt the anger and outrage. Now I needed to “sculpt” my rant into art.
Which led me to my daily muse, Taylor Swift. Who better to learn the art of sculpting a story than the master of turning diaries into works of art. Taylor Swift reminds me that it’s ok to tell my story in all it’s accusatory details. It’s ok to go against my life long training of being a “well behaved girl” and not give any thought to the person on the other end of my story. She always gives herself permission to share her truth and this was the permission I needed to hear. I wasn’t going to think about the person at the end of my joke. I wasn’t going to care if my dad or family ever heard me talk about my vagina to a room full of strangers. I wasn’t going to avoid the tiny details hoping that my content would be more palatable. With that permission, my story started coming together.
Fast forward to the night of the show and I had a story and arc I was proud of. I’m not sure I wrote an actual joke, but I did draw light to the absurdities of life, and there is humor in that. Stepping onto the stage was a surreal experience and after the first moment of shock seeing so many ceiling lights pointed at me and the audience a shadowed blur, I started my set. The audience was incredibly supportive and laughed and awwed and even started singing along with me when I belted out Metallica. The experience was life affirming, energizing, and deeply healing.
After the show, the comedians and audience had an opportunity to connect again during the appropriately named “afterglow.” It was a privilege to have so many intimate conversations after the show with women who were older than me and sharing their own stories of disappoint at the healthcare they received and to share hugs in knowing that we were not alone. It felt sacred to laugh together at our shared frustrations. It felt like I had given women’s healthcare a metaphorical fuck you and every time a woman shared that she had felt my pain too, that pain was eased and lightened. Paula told Barbara in her Momlando interview that when it’s over, you’re floating. I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve carried that lightness with me since the performance in January and am so excited for the opportunity to perform again at the Empowering Night of Laughter event this week. I am so proud of the art that both Barbara and I have created. The big difference between the both of us is that Barbara actually is funny and knows how to perform, so everyone is in for a treat! I’ll be back with my rant turned comedy, complete with another round of singing Metallica, and sharing my vagina stories, only this time with less self-doubt. We would love to have you attend our show and maybe it inspires you to participate in the future. Paula is always looking for more women willing to step outside their comfort zones.
Barbara and I will both be on stage sharing our comedy routines on Wednesday, May 1st at 6pm at The Abbey in Downtown Orlando. Tickets are still available at this link
