Chris has "honored" me with an award. This is not me fulfilling it. This is me agonizing over it. You can meet the requirements of the award in numerous ways, but the one I am most likely to go with is *Write about your most embarrassing moment.* Now, my dilemma
What quantifies something as most in this sort of thing? Is it the number of people who observe the embarrassing moment, a particular person who observes it, or does anyone have to observe it at all? Is it enough for you to know that you did something so stupid, or worse yet, that you compromised yourself in some way that you cannot take back? In some ways, that extends beyond the bounds of embarrassing and into the territory of shameful. Of course, if other people knew, then it would be embarrassing.
So, what defines us? The secrets that we keep or the ones that we tell? If we let them go, do they cease to have power over us, or by letting them out do they have more weight? I suppose if I were someone famous, it would become the thing that defined me instead of the thing that set me free. Since I'm not, I don't know. I like to think that people are generous and forgiving. I'm not so sure. Right now there is this line from an Indigo Girls song running through my head. I can't even think of the name of the song. But the line is "The things I hate in you are the things I hate in me."
