I joke a lot.
I’m “the funny one.” The one who keeps things light, who knows how to make people laugh when the mood gets awkward or heavy. It feels good to be needed in that way. Like I have a role that makes me belong.
At school, I’m always on. I turn everything into a joke before it can turn into something serious. If I’m laughing, no one asks questions. If everyone else is laughing, I don’t have to explain how I’m really doing.
But when I go home, my room gets quiet fast. The jokes don’t follow me there. I sit on my bed, scroll through my phone, replay the day in my head. The silence feels heavier than any laugh I had earlier.
I don’t know how to explain that laughing all day is tiring. That being funny can be a way of hiding, not healing. People think being cheerful means being okay, and I don’t know how to break that image without disappointing them.
I don’t want attention. I don’t want a big moment where everything stops and people stare at me with concern. I just want to be honest without changing how people see me completely.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I stopped joking for a second. If someone would notice. If someone would ask. Or if they’d just feel uncomfortable and move on.
My friends know how I make them laugh. I just wish they also knew the part of me that gets tired, that needs quiet, that wants to be seen without having to perform happiness all the time.
