When I was a kid, we played a game called the dozens. "The dozens" has many names, depending on where you're from, now it is most commonly named "roasting". In this game we would poke fun at one another about it all, nothing was off limits, and I mean nothing! Not a dead relative, illness, poverty, you name it, it was fair game. Never did I realize that it was something specific to where I came from and how I was raised, I believe that my socioeconomic status and ethnicity had a lot to do with it. Because we didn't have the resources to deal with our pain and problems like those who could afford counseling, vacations and the things that assisted in dealing with or escaping from the reality of hardship, we had to find joy in the circumstances as our own way to cope. Cracking, roasting, snapping, whatever you call it, was the relief. Coming from a Puerto Rican household where we mourned a dead loved one for a year, where there was no music, no laughing, no bright colors even, outside was where therapy was dealt in a way that helped us build up a resistance for the hard knocks of life.

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Joy, I try my very best to live in it, sometimes to the point that I am even called delusional. I have a friend who is a fellow comedian, who had a bit in his routine about how I would find the silver lining in anything. "You can tell Aida that a buiding was destroyed in an earthquake, and she'll respond that it probably had asbestos and needed to be renovated". I never really knew this about myself though, until others around me pointed it out, it had been my way for so long. I think that as I got older and matured, I found that this reasoning was best for me. Some have argued that doing this, is me actually not dealing with the issue, it is me masking the pain with a smile. I beg to differ. For me it is simple, it is actual logic. Joy is always the better option and it is a choice whether you want to accept that or not, because sometimes it is the hardest choice.

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For someone like me who grew up poor in the midst of violence and many of the social ills of marginalized communities, being able to laugh at the tough stuff actually allowed me to keep going. I would be a wreck if I was constantly down every time something happened around me, something was always happening!

Now, as a grown woman, I find myself reaching back to that coping mechanism to find the absurdity in some of the things that happen to me now. That sobering truth that terrible things happen to everyone and that no one is exempt from the realities of life, can really send you to that place where you want to find anything to hold on to, just to get through. I am not some guru or anything like that, I just realized that seeing things through a comedic lens was actually a very evolved way of dealing, we just didn't know it at the time.

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I walk through life finding the funny in all things, making a living out of it, talking about some of the harshest occurrences in life, my life, I've been able to write some of my best material about them. The greatest joy I feel when those jokes land is that I help others who have experienced similar things in life, heal, and in turn I heal a little bit myself. It has been one of the greatest tools I have had to face all that life has thrown at me as a woman, a person of color, a single mother.

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When I was a kid, I remember hearing "call it all joy" and feeling the confusion from the adults who felt sorrowful. Not understanding in any way what that meant and how I was supposed to do that, then stepping out into the world where I could be hit with a joke at any time about my mother's failed relationships or shopping with food stamps. I could feel sorry for myself or see the actual funny in it. It prepared me for life and for those I would encounter who in all reality could care less about my feelings while expressing their own pain. Being able to brush it off and move along in my own bliss is the greatest gift from my hood that keeps on giving. I will always be thankful for my thick skin, my quick wit and my unwavering superpower to smile though most of it. Calling it power and from that I grab my