How Embarrassing

Sometimes you wear Teddy Ruxpin overalls & someone takes a photo.

The prompt for today was about my most embarrassing moment.

Honestly, I don't look back on my short life and see one glaring embarrassing moment. I see years and years of embarrassment that we might as well just call my teen years. From age 12-17, I think I was at least vaguely embarrassed all the time. I had a pretty long awkward phase that sometimes I'm still not sure I've come out of, and I'm nearly 30.

I have had terrible haircuts, three years of braces, and really bad skin since I was about 10 years old (which, I have to say, seems a bit unfair!).

Sometimes it's the 90s and there's a lot of light denim.

I've fallen in front of the whole school, said things out loud (not to mention loudly!) that I never meant to say, and had my skirt blown up by a rogue wind. I had a step-dad who tried to turn embarrassing his teenage daughters into an Olympic sport. 

I've spent a bunch of time onstage so inevitably I've dealt with my voice cracking, hitting loud wrong notes, speaking into microphones I didn't know we're on, tripping and falling.

And don't even get me started on pregnancy...you haven't known embarrassment until you've visibly lactated in front of an unsuspecting male friend.

Sometimes a small human invades your abdomen.

All this to say that most embarrassment comes from taking yourself a little too seriously. Our pride is pricked and we feel shame. I think the trick of life is to think of yourself less and others more, and learn to laugh at the small things. Laughing at yourself in a healthy way is an invaluable life skill that I hope you can learn early. But I can't save you from your teen years...we've all got to go through that to get to the other side, kid.