The Journey to Become a Shameless Child Again


For some reason, when I was a kid, I hardly ever got embarrassed

I know... I know.... you hate me, don't you? But I just didn’t really. When you are known as a goofball, most people don't take you seriously. You drift through life being the eccentric, witty one that won't be questioned when you kiss a football, or purposely wear a shirt inside out on picture day, or burst into song in the cafeteria. People would just laugh and say, "Oh, it's just Flora being Flora."

I didn't care, so they didn't.

But although I was that class clown that thought everything was an opportunity to make someone laugh, one day I grew up and seemed to lose sight of that confident girl.

I was a funny, shameless, bright kid that turned into a self-conscience, self-doubting, depressed girl that couldn't crack a smile even when watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Because my identity weighed heavily in my humor and my confidence, when they were waning, I felt lost and lifeless.

And although my confidence comes in waves, and there is a long journey ahead of me, when I think of who is used to be and the woman I want to become, even in the most embarrassing moments, I find a little bit more grace for myself and learn to laugh at myself.

And although I was abrasively confident as a child, I still had moments throughout my life that made me red-in-the-face, run-and-hide, heartbeat-in-my-temples, sweat-through-my-shirt.... embarrassed.

As I look back at my childhood and try to become that shameless kid again, I am learning to laugh at my most vulnerable, cringeworthy moments and encompass the art of not giving a f***.

So sit back, drink some wine - I know I will - and enjoy the top three moments that were the death of me throughout childhood, teen years, and adulthood.

Taking one day at a time, I am becoming reacquainted with the unabashed child in me.

CHILDHOOD

Story One

Pee is Yellow

I am the youngest of four sisters. My dad is very creative but would use it to take advantage of his gullible firstborn by telling her outrageous stories and facts to see if she would believe him. (She always did.) He once told her that old photos and television were black and white because color didn't enter the world until the 20th century. And she believed it for far too long. (No lie... she was 14. We still make fun of her.)

But because my oldest sister was the victim of my father's cheeky tale-telling, after many tears wiped by my mother, she told him he wasn't allowed to bullshit the rest of us as he did with my oldest sister.

Maybe it was bitterness. Maybe it was trauma. Maybe it was her wanting to inflict the same pain she experienced on someone else.

But since dad wasn't allowed to tell tall tales to me..... she did.

Although I had many weird things told to me - like belly buttons come from horsefly bites - this story was the cherry on top.

One day my sister came out of the washroom and immediately started yelling. She told me how gross it is when I don't flush the toilet and if I do it one more time she is going to tell mom.

I just turned five and was only a few weeks into kindergarten. For the first time, I had to regularly pee in a public washroom. I knew that I was in the habit of always flushing the toilet at school so I yelled back.

I said it wasn't me and it had to be one of our other sisters. But she kept insisting that she knew it was me.

After I tried to disagree one more time she said, "I know it was you because everyone in each family has different color pee. Mine is green. Mom's is red. Dad's is blue. And our sisters have orange and pink. You are the only one in our family who has yellow pee. So it was you."

Although I was old enough to know better.... I didn't. I was embarrassed I didn't know and I apologized as I flushed the toilet.

But that isn't the most embarrassing part.

The next day at school, I found my new friends and wanted to know which color of pee they had. But when I asked them they looked at me like I was strange and in unison all said yellow. I was ecstatic and kept ranting about how lucky we are to all have the same color and 'what are the chances.'

I think I even said something along the lines of "we were destined to become friends because we all have the same color of pee."

Needless to say, after feeling like I could die of embarrassment, we laughed a lot. When we went into the school bathroom and witness an unflushed toilet, they would even say, "Flora, it's yellow. Have you been here?"

How I learned to not give a f***

The day that happened, I cried on the walk home and my mom gave my sister a long talking to. I felt humiliated and didn't even want to go to school the next day. But the beauty about children is they forgive easily. I was lucky to have good friends that didn't make me feel stupid for long and it became a hilarious inside joke with our group of friends. Even though some popular kids tried to make me feel small and stupid after they heard what happened, when I kept getting academic awards and had to even tutor some of them later on in life, they shut up pretty quickly. (I'm not stupid, just trusting... right?) And now I have one of the best stories to tell at parties and something to try on my own children one day to see if they will fall for the trick.


TEENS

Story Two

This is private property 




I had the biggest crush on a boy from my friend group. And when I was the first in the group to get a driver's license, I became his ride. He lived in the neighborhood across from mine, so since we lived close, I would pick him up on the way to hang out at someone's house or to go to youth group. It was so magical to drive around talking and laughing as he stared at me from the passenger seat. He soon became my best friend that I was very much in love with. (And later I would find out he was in love with me too.)

When you live in an extremely small town and your friends don't drink or smoke, there isn't much to do but hang out in someone's basement or go driving on the country roads surrounding us. We would blast the music and laugh so hard we couldn't breathe while sipping melted Slurpees. We would take a different turn each time to try to discover something a little bit more exciting than another dirt road.

A favorite destination for these late-night drives was a NOVA Chemical plant about twenty miles out of town. For a town so boring it only one escalator in a Sears, the bright lights and weird towers were exciting to us. (Pathetic - I know.) We didn't know it was a chemical plant at the time and would make up stories about how the government kept mutants locked up in the tall glowing towers.

The best thing about the plant was it was always completely empty once the workers went home.

It had a network of large parking lots with one even having a ramp. We would drive to the plant at midnight and rip up the ramp and do donuts in the parking lots. For a couple of sixteen-year-olds who had very sheltered upbringings, we felt pretty badass.

One night I drove up with my sister. We were making tire marks and blasting music - probably Taylor Swift, let's be real. But as we were getting dizzy by our fifth 360 in a row, a security car came ripping around the corner and pulled us over.

I was shaking and so concerned that my conservative parents would hear about this and ground me. A very tall man with a flashlight got out of the car and asked us to roll down the window. He asked what we were doing and we profusely apologized and said we were just having fun but would never do it again. He accepted that response and we sped away - laughing but red-faced.

Although it was embarrassing in the moment, we just laughed it off and sped home.

The next day was a big day. The boy I was in love with invited me to come over to his house and hang out with him and his sisters. (He still couldn't admit he wanted to see me outside of a group setting.) After trying to act cool by texting back a simple sure, I changed my clothes, gave myself a thumbs up in the mirror, and trembled the entire three-minute car ride to his house.

I knocked nervously and he quickly opened the door. I did that teen thing where you don't know what to say and just awkwardly walk in with tangled small talk falling out of your mouth. I said hi to his sisters cause I knew them well from church, and then he invited me into the kitchen to meet his parents.

His mom was a petite, bubbly woman who immediately hugged me, telling me how much she's heard about me.

And his father was...

The security guard that pulled me over at the chemical plant only three nights earlier.

At first, I didn't place him because that night his face was blurred slightly due to the blinding flashlight in my face. But he recognized me immediately and gave me a hard time. We all ended up laughing about it and when we started hanging out a few times a week he never brought it up again.

But I remember staring at him, wanting to cry and run back to my car and drive away. But I guess I became one of his son's most memorable love interests to meet.

How I learned to not give a f***

When I first saw his dad I assumed his father would have some preconceived negative image of me. I thought he wouldn't want me to hang out with his son because he thought I was trouble. (Again, I was very sheltered and thought that was trouble.) I was so thankful that his family all had a great sense of humor and even though I thought that boy would never want me to come over again, I was wrong. He was the first person who said they loved me and he will always have a tender spot in my heart. And that experience made me embrace my quirks and wild side and appreciate people around you who laugh at your moments rather than make you feel shameful. And I still do donuts in empty parking lots to this day.

ADULTHOOD



Story Three

A Tampon without Boundaries

I have only have told this story to two people because it still makes me cringe to this day.

When I was in my last semester of university, I was driving from my parent's house back to Vancouver after Christmas break. I would do that twelve-hour trip alone at least three times a year. Most people like doing it in two days, but I would always start early, put on an audiobook and drive all day.

For anyone who has done that drive knows a few things about it.

1. A large portion is mountain driving
2. Mountain driving includes sudden weather changes
3. The most dangerous stretch is a highway called the Coquihalla
4. About 100 miles of the Coquihalla have no rest points or a curb to pull over
5. There are multiple signs before that stretch telling you to gas up
6. Every winter 400-500 accidents happen on that 100-mile stretch alone, many ending in fatalities
7. In winter they ask you to drive with chains on your tires
8. With single-lane driving, steep mountain ledges, and no curb, you can not even stop

So there I was, driving the same road for the millionth time but after I passed the point of no return on the Coquihalla... I realized something.

My tampon was beyond full and it needs to come out NOW.

(If you know you know.)

It wasn't a raging snowstorm per se, but there was enough gust and white to not have a lot of vision forward or backward. And it was cold. Very, very cold. I couldn't pull over without fear of getting hit by someone ripping around a corner but I couldn't wait another hour to get to a rest stop.

So I decided to take it out while driving and attempt to put another one in.

Although this seems like an unbelievable feat, I managed to do it. I had the stretch benefit of sweat pants and gripped the damp string and pulled it free. I looked around in my car for a bag or a napkin or anything but OF COURSE, I just cleaned out all the take-out garbage at the last stop.

(This wasn't a very thought-out plan but I just needed it out.)

There I was, driving down winding roads with slightly impaired vision with one hand holding the steering wheel and the other a dripping tampon. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't just put it on the fabric seat. It would stain. And I didn't want to come up with an explanation for every friend, love interest, and family member to ever have the unfortunate luck to have to sit on it.

I couldn't do it.

So I rolled down my window halfway. The freezing wind and snow vacuumed into my car, pelting my face. I quickly locked eyes with myself in my side-view mirror, hating myself for littering, and threw it out the window into the gusting wind.

I shut the window, proud of my feat in this weather, and grabbed a new tampon from my purse and dangerously (but successfully) reinserted it.

With the sudden weather changes the mountains magically bring, a few minutes later the snow began to fall less and the skies became clearer. Clear enough to see more road ahead of me.

But also clear enough to see the car that I didn't know was behind me.

A car that was persistently trying to windshield-wipe away a frozen, USED tampon stuck to the bottom of their window. With the temperature below zero and the momentum of the car, it froze to the window, just low enough that it was stuck underneath the base of the windshield wiper.

The worst part was, they had to follow me for another half hour before a rest stop was available.

Although it broke free after drenching it in wiper fluid only after a few minutes, I was devastated and tried to quickly speed ahead of them as much a possible without being too dangerous.

I was afraid they would tail me until I had to pull over for gas and yell at me while hitting my window in with a baseball bat. (I have an overly active imagination.) But luckily they pulled off to the first rest stop available, leaving me to freely speed away to get out of their line of vision.

Although I didn't have a face-to-face confrontation with them, to this day it makes me cringe. I can barely look at my own used tampon, so for a stranger to see my bodily fluids frozen to their windshield without CONSENT or any opportunity to pull over was humiliating enough. Let alone have to follow me for a half-hour with us both knowing what was done.

I would rather bleed through my pants than experience anything like that again. Go to the washroom before the Coquihalla, folks. Please.

How I learned to not give a f***

Weird shit happens that you think could only happen in a movie. You search for the cameras because you think to yourself that it can't be real. But the point is, they were strangers that I never had to see again. (I pray to everything that is good and pure in this world that that remains true.) And although I was so embarrassed that an intimate part of me was frozen to a stranger's window, now (after the initial cringe) it just makes me laugh. I have only ever told my two best friends, and it took some liquid courage for me to confess. But when I did, they laughed so hard until one of them peed their pants. So at least one pair of soiled pants came out of this. And as much as it was awkward to see my blood spread cross a stranger's window, if that happened to me I think I would laugh really hard and tell all my friends.

But if they couldn't laugh and felt violated, dear stranger, if you are reading this, contact me and I will venmo you the funds for up to three therapy sessions.

One thing that I remind myself of is that I won't remember most of the embarrassing things I've done in twenty years' time... or maybe even ten

The details will grow fuzzy, the punchlines will be misremembered and the people that witnessed those moments could drift away. But if they don't, they will share gems of laughter that can be pulled out when the skies are grey or the party is boring.

So ask your friends what color their pee is. Get pulled over by your first love's dad. Throw your tampon... well... in the garbage cause you know... gross.

Be your weird, funny, obnoxious, real, vulnerable, embarrassing, authentic self.

Soon you will laugh and embrace the things that were once the death of you and hopefully will learn to walk through life again with the confidence and shamelessness of a child.

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Until your mom revisits all your worst memories during her toast at your wedding

Cheers!