If I called my mother right now, and said, “You’ll never guess what happened the other day,” she would hang her head in her hands and say, “Oh no, Bridge.”
The reason being? I embarrass myself constantly. Well no, maybe that’s the wrong way to say it. I do things that probably should be perceived as embarrassing and I tend to be unfazed. That is until I relay that information to the woman who birthed me and realize her second hand shame warrants a moment of pause. When you are a speak before you think, act without consideration, accident prone kind of person, it’s best to grow a thick skin. If I crumbled in embarrassment every time I attempted a one woman performance of Les Miserables (more than once, unfortunately) I would be a shell of a human by now. So I toughened up.
I fought tooth and nail to not care what others think of me. To find safety within myself, so that when my judgment failed I could let it roll off. Did I pull it off? Did I manage to build myself an indestructible armor? No. I haven’t perfected this yet. Everyday I get a bit closer, I think. I catch myself in the minutes after an embarrassing moment and give a pep talk to my own mind. Saying the overly exhausted, “Not everyone is going to like me,” and “If I’m everyone’s cup of tea then I’m probably boring.” This is a part of adulthood that feels like a universal, unspoken experience. Honesty hour? It’s a fake it till you make it situation.
If that’s what adulthood is all about, I can’t help but think of the moment I first learned how to be embarrassed. It happens when you’re young, so young. I’ve seen it in my niece and nephew. Split second moments where the adults laugh and the kids cry and we all share knowing looks because it’s “nothing.” But it’s not nothing. Not to the children who experience shame for the very first time, not realizing it is a fundamental part of having a heart in your chest.
But we learn how to be embarrassed long before we learn there was nothing to be embarrassed about in the first place. So that’s what I want to throw away today–the lesson in shame that I never wanted to learn. It’s about time for a healthy dose of perspective. To look back at a moment in a California Pizza Kitchen 20 years ago and give myself permission to move on. Because looking up at the face of the man whose leg I clung to at 4 years old, and realizing it was just another bald man and not Randy Walton (my father, obviously) is a memory not soon forgotten. Even now, I can feel my cheeks burning in horror.
When you’re a grown up and you watch a kid hug the leg of someone wearing a similar outfit to their father, you don’t think twice about it. It’s understandable. It’s human. It’s endearing and sweet. A testament to our longing to be safe and comforted. But it was at that moment that I learned what it was like to be laughed at, the punchline of some secret joke I wasn’t allowed to be in on. The world as I knew it shifted and suddenly my actions were being weighed and measured against a standard I couldn’t understand. The real consequence of this singular moment is every moment that comes after.
The years that would follow that childhood blunder would be years of changing myself–constantly. Wanting desperately to be accepted but never giving myself the opportunity to be rejected. I played it safe. I stripped myself of everything that made me different, made me who I am. I’ve spent the last chunk of my young life trying to be at home in my own mind and going beyond that, loving the things that make me different. Looking at my Les Miserable one woman shows and thinking, “What an artistic interpretation,” or hearing a coworker say, “You’re a very special person,” and choosing to be affirmed rather than offended.
That’s the word I keep coming back too: choose. It is a choice to reorient yourself around the things that make you different and decide to pull them close rather than push them away. I want to find solace in my embarrassing moments. I want to share laughter with my friends and family over a stupid thing I said or yet another concussion I acquired and claim it–proudly. These very human, very vulnerable moments don’t make me funnier or more likable or more attractive. They make me an acquired taste.
What an honor it is to be a person. To be created. As I work to throw away the shame I learned to feel as a young girl, I hope to be a woman who looks back at that girl with compassion and grace. A woman who looks forward to a future of more embarrassing moments than I can count. More blunders, more uncomfortable truths spoken, more scrapes and bruises from attempting things I was not built for. Each one is a sacred practice of my becoming a fully realized Bridget.
You may not like her. Thankfully, you don’t have too. But I like her. She is opinionated, and stubborn, she laughs easily and doesn’t cry enough. Make up your own mind about her and do me a favor? Don’t tell me what you decide. That’s none of my business.
Your Trashiest Friend,
B
Needed this so bad. You rock so hard! ILY <3