Did I Do That??

Anyone can write about events that are funny, quirky, or turn out great in the end.  But a hard hard thing for me to do is to write about hard things when they happen.  Things like marriage or money concerns, heartache with kids, or getting blamed for things I didn't do... For some reason, I have felt that it is just not entertaining to share bad things with people, as they are happening. (I can always spin it into a life lesson later, right?) What I find now, is how important it is for people to share burdens.  So lets take one of mine and see if anyone else relates.

I hate being embarrassed.  More than anything, I hate being someone that messes up, or is in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hate having something in my life that I have no control over that is embarrassing, and I hate even worse when I could have changed things, but didn't.  So whether it is a horrible thing like being assaulted, or being late to a loved ones funeral, or having a car break down in the middle of a trip, causing us to miss something important.... It all comes down to being embarrassed.

Without making this a rant, I want to stay on the embarrassment part. It is easier for me to have righteous indignation, or anger.  But the part that stays hidden is the embarrassment. The part that says, "Did I allow this to happen?" This is something that has just come out of thin air.  Like a whack in the back of the head, because who thinks about this?  It's odd. And I am embarrassed.

I usually label being embarrassed as being dorky, or goofy, or a nerd.  But there is a difference for me, really. I am confident enough now that if I have something spill on my shirt, or trip on a step, I can own that I am not perfect. And I have come to that confidence from a lot of spills and trips. But the uncharted, unfinished, and unacceptable part of me still has embarrassment issues about the big things. Things that I don't talk about because, well, they are embarrassing. Like harassment. And bullying. And...Assault.

Who would think that assault (in this case, assault is a socially neutral word to me, for sexual bullying, or rape, or things like that) would be embarrassing? Well, because it is something that is nebulous. And anyone that has done that to someone else would rather put that stuff on the victim than own it. Instead of "I'm sorry. I had no idea I had gone over the line" or "What was I thinking? I can't believe I hurt you!", it is "What? You baby. Can't you take a joke?" and "No, you wouldn't think I would come on to YOU, would you?"  All the time being sick to the stomach knowing something...SOMETHING had caused this, and it wasn't you. The offender is saying, though, that it is, and a small part would say, "Am I crazy? DID I misinterpret?"  And THAT is the embarrassment I am talking about.

I think, "DID I actually do this deed, and I have somehow forgotten/blanked it out?" And then I think, "That has to be the only reason for this to be happening, so I must be crazy!" How embarrassing  to be crazy. Right? To think everything is going well, only to be whacked up the side of the head with something that changes your day/week/life and IT'S MY FAULT.  And everyone else knows it.

February 15th, which is today, marks the 3rd year that I got through my embarrassment.  I got to feel humiliated because of an assault that left me hurting, inside and out. And I got to hear from a guy that it was my fault. That he knew I was looking to be assaulted. That I asked for it. That I chose to make the decisions he made that caused me scrapes and bruises, both physical and mental.  It's the 3rd year that I have had to decide whether to listen to police and hospital staff and therapists and ...me, instead of hearing again the guy that embarrassed the hell out of me.  And it is still ...so embarrassing that I would never dream of talking about it to anyone.

So why talk about it now?  Because I am a big girl now. I do not choose to have it eat at me. I do not choose to have it be a dark blot that is the only thing I don't write about. It is not about the event. It is about the feeling of embarrassment and why it so completely consumes me in who I talk to and how I choose to talk about it.  I could make a downplayed joke about it. I could keep it inside as a secret until it is a non-event. I could even make it into a building block in my life. But the truth is that right now...it is simply embarrassing. Not because of what I did, but because of the way he made me feel. And how I make me feel when I remember, which is every February 14th.

Instead of "Oh I am So Sorry!" posts, I am interested in knowing if embarrassment effects you the same way? Instead of "What a jerk!" comments, I am interested in knowing , if you dare, what it is that you have not had the guts to talk about because embarrassment was your cage? I am interested in knowing I am not the only one that holds embarrassment as the deepest, darkest secret.   Because the more I let it out into the light, the less it holds me hostage.

So Many Crossroads. I'll Go Left...No Right...

The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I marked the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost  I love to wander. And I love to walk. However, not all my choices happen in a thicket outside.  My mother likened this poem to daily choices, and I still have that tendency. For instance:

Well-off or not. Left-wing or Right. Fit or Fat. Heels or Flats. Spanxs or Flab. Gray or Color. Stay or Go. In or Out. Happy or Sad. I imagine all of these decisions as a road with a fork in it. (Not an actual fork.) And I am Robert Frost, coming to the 2 roads that bring me to my daily choice. They add up to a lot of energy spent, and sometimes I am exhausted by 8 AM.

Some of these roads are pretty recent.  And they are a bit disappointing. The choices of age just stink.  Why would I care if I went natural or fixed my body artificially? At 27, I was not in the least bit interested. But at 38... they need to be considered. Heels or Flats? At 9, it didn't matter, because my mom would have none of that anyway. FLATS. The choice was made for me.

OOH. HMM.  I want my mom. To continue just making choices for me. Now lets be clear that at teen-hood, I just wanted her out of my life because she was ridiculously dumb. Because I was always right, and knew all the answers. I just needed her for food and money. NOT ADVICE.  But now... it would be nice to wake up and have my clothes laid out, my shoes next to my clothes, and my breakfast made again.  Even if it was oatmeal. 

She could make my choices in clothing, but the consequence to that is she would also make my money choices as well. (NO, Sharon, You may not have unlimited funds for the night as you leave the house, looking for something "fun" to do.) That might work as a teen, but definitely doesn't work when I have my own household. Oh well. It was a thought...

Oh, the money thing. To Spend or Not To Spend. The daily road of choice. Now, most fork-in-the-road spots I do myself,  like trying on 5 outfits to get the right combination for the day. This includes the thank-you-for-trying-but-you-didn't-make-the-cut-today outfits being flung over my bed and dresser, with my husband looking on in wonder. (He gathers them up and puts them in a basket for me to put away later. I just keep them there, and bring them out the next day.) Most are my individual choice, when it comes right down to it, but the money thing, well, that brings in my partner. To Spend or Not To Spend looks like this:

Husband: Oh yeah. It's on sale. We have to get it.

Me: Is it on the list?

Husband: Writes it on the list with the pen he has kept for just such occasion. Yes.

Me: You just wrote that in!

Husband: So? It's on sale and we have to get it.

Me: You're right. It IS on the list....

And that's the decision. In fact, it is what all my choices come down to. Self Control, or Live In The Moment?  I'd say it is a 50/50 split right now.  I do wear high heels without Scholl's gel inserts (see a prior story for that), so I practice self control wearing them in spite of the pain, all day. They go with my outfit, after all. BUT, I don't wear SPANX as often as I could (or should, for that matter. I do have limits in my daily dose of discomfort.). I choose salty pickles and chips on my sandwiches every time, but will skip eating ribs, steak, or red meat, usually, and choose a salad instead. Does it balance out? the teeter totter of  having both control AND indulgence? Not really, but I am currently in the place where I pick the choice that makes sense at the time.

My mom would groan and turn away if she knew. (She doesn't currently read my blog, I don't think.)

Mom told me, once, to make a choice, make it once, and live with the consequences.  Then you never have to make it again, and you are free to do other things. (My mom got along with Robert Frost on a few things.) Sound advice, really. It is how she balances her checkbook. It is how she knows when to iron shirts, and darn socks, and what time to make dinner or breakfast. Or make her bed. And when to send out birthday cards, I believe. She is amazing!

She used it, she said, for choices like, "Does she date young, or at 16?" and "Will she pray before a big decision, or not?" and "What type of companion will she marry?"  I agree with her philosophy on the life changing things. And, I wish I would have listened. MMM, I listened. I just didn't emulate a whole lot. 

Oh how I envy that woman sometimes.  She came to the forks of her life a long time ago, I believe.  She sat in the dust, or the pavement (or she just brought one of those folding chairs that she got in a Church auction, with her), and, with a legal pad and pen in hand, would write down the pro's and con's of the decision. Then, she would keep the pad with her in her purse, to be referred to when needed, and would simply take the road that made most sense. And keep on down that road.  ( I am pretty sure she has the legal pad to this day.) Did I say she even taught me how to do it? I saw her balance her checkbook every Monday and iron Dad's shirts on Tuesday. 

 So why do my choices still look like me running, pell-mell down the road and then screeching to a halt at the last possible second, only to put a foot in both directions, walking it out until I do the splits?  It's because I want it all. I am a road dweller because I want both Self Control AND Instant Gratification.  Can it be done?

My legs hurt.

I do know this. I have started to pick myself up and go down one tine of the fork in that road. And then, cut across and go to the other side, knowing that I will probably run through prickles and milkweed sap and tumbleweeds. But when I get to the other side, I get to experience ... more.  Even if that ...more... is the wrong way after all, so I have to book it, double-time, back the way I came.  Even if, when I get to where I was in the first place, I look a bit sticky and dirty and tired. 

Usually, though, I am smiling because I got to see both sides. I got to look at both roads and THEN pick. Again, my mom would groan. So would Robert Frost.

I am not my mom. I will take her lessons and use them a lot of times. But sometimes...SOMETIMES... I will pick up my chair and my legal pad and just fling them into the weeds, running fast for the other road.  Sometimes in my heels, never in my SPANX, and when I get to the problem of whether to go gray or natural, I may wander, then, as well.  

Stop the words! I'm drowning!!!

I grew up with words being coerced, coaxed, pleaded and applauded out of me. As a baby, adult faces would frown when i didn't do what they asked, and shine when i got it right. Words let me know which paths were the easiest and the hardest, which food was hot or cold, which items were off limits, and what happened to the bad guys in fairytale stories.

As i grew, i heard more complex phrases which, put together with the correct punctuation, let me know when to come home for dinner, which friends i could hang with, and why my soup was too bland.

In teenhood, words became everything. EVERYTHING (along with the right eye liner) could be accomplished with words. Add an essential eye roll, a few facial expressions, and world peace could be solved.

All through life, words have been my companion in making my world vivid. I couldn't have have this vivaciousness about words without my elders. I was fortunate enough to have fine arts and liturature imbued into the very air i breathed. But, i do enjoy being lax, thanks to texting, facebook, and looking out the window as i tap away at the keys. Also, i like to write as i think, lately, and that is anything but high-falutin.

Which is why it is particularly silly when i get words, phrases, and even punctuation wrong, by accident. I was corrected about a few phrases, this afternoon, by a woman whom i could barely understand. She had no accent. She was from the same region as i. Yet i struggled mightily to let her words (and the blueberry muffin i was eating at the time) fight it out in my mouth for room. (I was saved by milk.) "You know, the correct term for ....blah blah.....is....bleetily blow, bliy bloo bloo..." and she sat there haughtily, waiting for me to do something. Bow down and say, "I'm not worthy!" or maybe "You have changed my life! I will now be a blow-torch guy!" (The term is welder.) Her eyebrow was pulled up to an almost Vulcan-ese hight, and the left side of her lips had been scrunched, while at the same time being pulled down slightly. And there she was. My grandma. Ouch. (And Ba Ha!!! She even had the mole!) I am not clear what she wanted from me, except for me to immediately stop offending her with my hill-billy ways, and move around her. This put me in mind of Dr. Seuss's story where two furry yet naked beings came across the sand, one from the north, and one from the south. Instead of either of them moving to one side so they could continue their journey, they found ways to share with the other about how important they were. And how IMPERITIVE it was that the other move, simply because of how important they were. The words got more self-important. Words like "Sir" were traded for "Young Man", and then on to "You couldn't possibly understand how important it is that you move aside so I can move forward, Simpleton"-ish attitudes. And a freeway was built around their haughtiness. It was like that, but the woman had clothes on and was slightly less furry. I believe she simply corrected me as she had been corrected by her elders, and wasn't even aware that she did it, honestly. And I was schooled. I said "Thank you." And moved aside so she could get her own muffin. To anyone that has been corrected, or even looked at, by me, in the oh-you-poor-creature way that she had given me, i apologize. It's hideous. For the next 2 weeks on Facebook, or texting, you have my permission to correct me. But only if i get to see the eyebrow-raising gesture at the time. Or the lips pursing together with those crinkly lines making you look 30 years older than you are. Send those pics in! Just the flaring nostrils and eyes and lips, mind you. Cause that would make one heck of a montage (homage? mobile?...) to the elders that have started turning over in their graves at my lax use of their lessons lately.