Other Peoples Stories.

Sometimes I wonder if I am ever the subject of other peoples stories.

I never wonder if those stories are about me being inspirational or helpful or doing good for others.

I assume that they have to be stories about the stupid and embarrassing shit that I’ve said and done throughout my life.

You know the stories that you tell other people. When you saw or heard something so absurd that you immediately had to call your significant other or BFF and say, “Oh. My. God. You wouldn’t believe what just happened.”

Those are the stories that I think are being told about me.

I’ve said a lot of stupid things. I’ve done a lot of stupid things. I’ve embarrassed myself. A lot.

Like the time that stage fright nearly killed me and I peed myself while performing a junior high play. Luckily there was no puddle. Nobody even knew that it happened. But I did. I stood there reciting my lines and then ran off stage mortified, locked myself in the bathroom and cried in absolute humiliation.

Or the time that I was in a job interview when I was 18 and after being asked how I would deal with a customer complaint told the interviewer in these exact words, “Well I wouldn’t kiss their ass or anything.” After being immediately repulsed by my own words I apologized and left the interview.  

Or the time that I got into an argument with my ex-boyfriend’s father (and later stepmother) about my boyfriend’s age.  I gave him a hard time when he got it wrong. But I’m the one who actually got it wrong. I didn’t know my boyfriend’s correct age and then accused his father of not knowing his own son’s age.

Or the absolute worst, how about the multitude of times that I repeated the offensive things that I heard in the conservative community/social circles that I lived in like a fucking parrot and then didn’t realize that they were offensive (and straight-up bullshit) until several years later. I know that there are people that I insulted. And those people surely thought that I was a huge asshole and a completely different kind of person than I am (or at least like to think that I am) because I was so incredibly, cluelessly, ignorant.

I’m ashamed of myself and many of these moments.

But why? Or rather, why still? They likely don’t matter to anyone but me.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that I’m not the only one. We’ve all said stupid things. We’ve all done stupid things. I don’t remember all of the stupid things that other people in my life have said and done, some of them yes, usually because they actually affected me, but not all of them. And the likelihood of other people remembering all the stupid things that I said or did years ago is pretty unlikely. It just doesn’t matter as much to them as it does to me.

Unless they happened to catch it on video or in writing of course and are able to relive my humiliation at will.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am that people didn’t have cameras in their pockets when I was in junior high peeing myself on stage or in high school when I was running topless through the sprinklers at the park in the middle of the night or later in my early adult years to hear the multitude of other stupid things that I said and did. I can’t imagine how mortified I would be to have some of those things caught on camera.

I only really have to worry about the nudes that my older boyfriend took of me in high school (and then took the film to be developed at Walmart). Where are those pictures now?

Or the multitude of dirty notes and love letters that I wrote to all the boys I loved before. Those are the only real evidence of my stupidity. And I’d like to think that all of those things have been burned or buried and rotting away in a landfill. But even if they haven’t, I’m not the same person today that I was then. So it doesn’t really matter. Right?

So why does my mind still persist in rehashing these ridiculous moments of not mattering?