I’ll be the first to tell you that I make an idiot out of myself on a regular basis. And by regular, I mean daily, albeit hourly. It’s not purposefully done, no sir, it happens most times without me even realizing it until after the fact. I’m that good at it. Really good.
I’ve embarrassed myself so many times (as I’m sure each of you have as well), I could not even begin to count them all. I’ve said the wrong thing, said entirely too much, laid my heart on the line, not laid my heart out what so ever, drank a little too much here and there, screamed when I probably shouldn’t have, gotten words/people/places so confused that Webster himself couldn’t have even gotten me untangled, cried in public, had my face turn uncontrollable shades of crimson, thrown a chair (or picture frame, or fill in the blank) across a room, laughed at inappropriate intervals, fallen flat on my face and my ass – literally yet obviously not simultaneously – in public when it was the very last thing I needed to do at the time, woken up the morning after with the moral hang-over from haties. And … 0h my word – I could keep going, but honestly I don’t need to. You get the point. You’ve been there. Right?
The thing that’s taken me the longest to learn is letting go of the embarrassing moments I’ve had in my time. For days, months, even in some cases years, these moments would stick with me ….. and would absolutely horrify me. I would shudder when these thoughts crossed my mind. Thinking to myself, Oh Lord! What was I thinking?? How could I be so stupid?! That is probably the one thing (fill in the blank here) remembers when they think of me. That one last thought, alone, can drive a person mad and cause you to lock a piece of yourself away. (Believe me. I should know.) Some of these thoughts and moments have haunted me since high school.
Correction: some of these thoughts and moments used to haunt me since high school. Much better. You see, once I started letting go of the aftermath, the embarrassing moments — well they didn’t start to slip away, because they’re definitely still happening on a regular basis, but they did lose a good bit of their power, or hold, over me.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s still the initial shudder and groan when I realize what I’ve just done, said, texted, etc. That, like the bright red shades my face turns, will never go away. The main difference is now I see these moments are simply that ….. moments in time. They pass just like all the others and who am I to keep bringing them up over and over again in my head?
Besides, they all turn into solid, entertaining stories eventually. And isn’t that what life’s about in the end – a great story to be told? I like t0 think so. Embarrassing moments and all. *even the ones captured on film……
You can’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive. – Van Wilder
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