Last year’s disaster is this year’s funny story. Give this one time to ripen.

Distance does something to bad events that nothing else can. Right now it is raw and takes up everything, and in a year the same thing arrives with the shape of a story, with a beginning, a ridiculous middle, and you standing there telling it. What changes is not the event, it is how much of you it currently occupies.

While you are still inside one, you do not have to pretend it is funny yet. Just keep the detail. Write down what happened, including the absurd parts, and put it somewhere. You will want those details later, when this becomes the thing you tell people.