But I digress. I'm late because I've been baking a pie. A birthday pie! Today is Andy's birthday, and this photo is both perfectly appropriate and a perfect allusion to the results of today's writing prompt:
Today's prompt: Reflect on a particular moment in your past when you felt most in touch with your “Glorious Awkwardness.” It could be a cringe-worthy moment you’ve replayed a thousand times in your mind. Or something essential about who you are, something unchangeable. Go back there.
What did you learn from it? Can you laugh about it? And if not, why?
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Write about awkwardness, they say. Hold my beer, I think. Except it's 7:30 in the morning, and regardless, if I had a beverage I'd probably spill it on the hand-off...and that's not the point, but there I've already ruined the metaphor. It won't be the last thing I damage today, but if I can keep it in the realm of figurative speech and not dishes, mugs, body parts, or dignity, it will be a banner day.
Focusing on one awkward moment from my life is like going to the beach, picking up one grain of sand, and saying, that's the one. That's the most significant grain of sand on the beach. It's like asking Octo-mom (remember her?) which one of her kids is her favorite. First of all, asking her to choose is unfair, and second, how do you expect her to remember all of them?
See what I'm doing here? I'm deflecting. I'm cracking jokes. That's a classic awkward person defense mechanism. But okay, let's get real. When did you first realize you were awkward?
Oh, yes, sorry. Deflecting again.
When did I first realize I was awkward? It was a gradual realization, but, like most of us, my self-awareness surged in middle school. Everyone is self-critical in 7th grade, but most of us look back at photos or reminisce with friends and family and realize the insecurity was purely internal. Most of us, but not this recovering 7th grader. It was also very much external.
Let me paint a picture for you:
It's 1997. There's a lot of lime green chenille happening, too much hair gel, and just the right amount of those useless pastel butterfly clips that could hold about 8 strands of hair.
Okay, but we've all made regrettable sartorial choices.
Then there were the glasses, the braces, and the expander-retainer thing you had to wind with a key each week, causing a lisp, excruciating pain, and a gap that would make those British subway posters mind me (told you more figurative speech would be destroyed today). Oh, and the acne! The Clearasil-icing on the awkward cake.
Everyone has an awkward phase. You grew out of it, right?
But wait, there's more! For some reason, I was afraid of going to my locker between classes, so I carried all of my textbooks at all times. My backpack became a giant nylon turtle shell that shouted sit next to me so you can copy my answers. The most important thing in that backpack, though, was a fat folder holding a single-sided printout of the full-length script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail that I had mostly memorized and would act out or quote regularly.
You see, there are the awkward moments where we trip or say the wrong thing, moments you can brush off. That's acute awkwardness. You'll recover. Then there's what I have, which is chronic, metastatic, congenital awkwardness. There is no cure, there is no treatment, there is no hope. There are no telethons or 5K's, but we sufferers know that self-deprecation and humor are rather effective palliative measures.
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