Live, Laugh, Let It Go

We all know that person. The one whose face is creased with laughter lines, whose hair bleached white and grey with the passing years. The one who cracks awkward jokes to strangers that make all those nearby groan. The one who is unphased by the wave after wave of cringeworthy moments that seem to make up the bulk of their twilight years. Perhaps you think it’s just that age.

‘Once I’ve lived as long as they have, there will be no reason to feel embarrassed. In fact, at a certain age, it’s a waste of those precious few years you have left.’

It’s a fair assumption to make, but then how did I become one of them so many decades early? Maybe there’s something else behind their blush free behaviours. Could it be the same thing that ended my days of embarrassment shortly after they began?

My first and final memory of embarrassment took place when I was just seven years old. I was captivated by the sparkling sunlight reflected in the dancing water of a fresh new fountain. My cousin and I giggled as flecks splashed outward, kissing our cheeks. Then my cousin noticed something amazing.

She shrieked with excitement, “Treasure!”

There they were, beneath the subtle waves, countless coins, just like the ones from our storybooks. I didn’t see an X nearby, but what else could this be?

Eagerly, we began piling fistfuls of gold and silver into our pockets.

“We’re rich!” I laughed.

Our triumphant joy was short lived and wasn’t long before a sharp smack stung my hand. My shocked eyes looked up to meet horror in my Nan’s.

“What are you doing?” She whispered frantically, “Put those back right now! They’re donations for charity. You are stealing from them.”

Her words hit me far harder than the tap. I understand now there are some things you just don’t know until you do but, at the time, I had never felt so guilty. Humiliation filled my being for the first time, and for the last that day.

Don’t get me wrong, my life is far from blemish free. I made plenty of mistakes after that and I’ve never been exactly typical. I got stage fright, I was the clumsiest kid you could meet, and I had no concept of how to interact with people. The question ‘hug or a handshake’ was my go to when meeting new people because I genuinely didn’t know which was appropriate for the given situation. I became the nineteen year old who used the words, “I don’t give my number to strangers”, when responding to the very attractive and polite young man who took an interest. The cringeworthy moments of my life could fill a novel, or more accurately a series, but no more than a year after my youthful embarrassment at the fountain I learned something that changed the way I experience these kinds of moments forever.

As the only child who hadn’t succumbed to the expected sugar crash, I felt the warmth of daytime fade, welcoming the party section of our family reunion. At eight years old, I no longer needed to worry about being scolded and sent to bed while song and dance stole the night. I watched the adults (all of whom were a couple of drinks in at this point) laughing and twirling without a care in the world.

My foot tapped quietly as I sat glued to my seat at an age when the fear of being seen had first begun to creep in. I wanted nothing more than to join them, but all of the other kids were watching television and the only people engaged in this musical merriment had a little liquid courage to help them along. Every time I tried to psych myself up to go in, my heart stuttered and my limbs locked. I couldn’t do it.

For a while I wallowed in my own cowardice, thinking I’d stay there forever, but with skip, spin and bow my uncle appeared before me and invited me to jump in. I shook my head shyly, but he wasn’t going to leave me alone that easily.

“You worried about them?” He asked, “Here’s the thing you need to know about people. They don’t care. Everyone’s caught up in their own little worlds. You can be as crazy as you like and no one will even look up. Watch.”

So, I watched. I watched him back up into the middle of the crowd. I watched him do the most ridiculous, exaggerated dance moves I had ever seen. I watched him, and I watched those around him. He was right. No matter what he did or how silly he looked, nobody looked up. Not even for a second.

I stepped out onto that dance floor with a smile spreading wide across my face and I never looked back.

We all have moments when we make a fool of ourselves, when we make mistakes or look a bit silly, but they only matter for a short while if they matter at all. People have their own lives to live and while a handful may look up, your awkward moments won’t stay with them forever, so don’t let them stay with you.

Live your truth, laugh at yourself, and let it go.