Growing up, I scored highly on some statewide and national standardized tests.
This led to me being removed on occasion from class, to then be given more tests. I could pick a spot in a row of desks spaced out from the other kids next to me, who had also been removed from their classes. Tests like, “which arrow comes next in the sequence?” and math equations with symbols that were foreign to me. I would do my best, biting my nails the whole way through, but eventually they had stopped removing me from class. It seemed as though they had realized the truth, that while I used big words, proper grammar, and could write a 46 page story about the Oregon Trail while in 5th grade, I wasn’t able to score high enough on logic, math or science in order to truly be set apart from the other students. The school did offer options to further my growth in writing, introducing me to authors and busing me to seminars about creative writing. But unfortunately, my little mind had already been made up. In third grade, I read a graphic novel about the painstaking process of writing, editing, and publishing. It made very clear to the younger me that writing was a grueling process with little financial reward. That meant that I knew it wouldn’t make my parents proud, and thus, was not a viable career option.
Over time, watching others create became inspiring. Watching people vlog their day in public, talking to a camera around strangers seemingly without fear, made me want to record my days too. But I always had a sinking feeling no one would ever want to watch what I would be up to. Plus, wasn’t that embarrassing? Everyone watching you talk to yourself?
Then I found people writing about the things that they were doing everyday. They were able to put down on paper the things that they had found made their lives easier, but also about the obstacles along the way that had created difficulties for them and how they had successfully overcome it. Something stirred in me, the desire to write that I had pushed down coming back around. I thought it might be nice to write something again. To have someone read it, and feel seen by something that had come from my hands. But no, isn’t that too embarrassing? To write about yourself unabashedly?
So for years as I trekked through high school, trying to find and create spaces where I could be myself proudly with much struggle. Anxiety about being seen as “weird” crippled me, but the joy I felt being viewed as unique was so fulfilling I kept walking the tightrope, terrified of being judged but wanting to be loved. I wrestled constantly with shame (which in depth is a topic for another day), but also with the constant feeling of embarrassment.
I couldn’t hide when I felt that way, my face immediately went red, and would only deepen when I would realize how flushed I was, recalling all the times as a kid someone had pointed to me, laughing, saying, “look at how pink your cheeks are!” From then on, I had made the choice that I did not want to be caught doing anything that could lead to embarrassment.
At some point in this journey, I read somewhere online an adage that struck me so hard I tucked it deeply into my memory, and pull it out whenever I need an extra bit of courage. “It is only embarrassing if you are embarrassed.” The internet attributes this to Madison Daniels, a Christian writer who goes on to say “God is good even when life isn’t”, and with time I have found both of these to ring true. This year, I am challenging myself to do some of the things I have allowed fear of embarrassment to steal from me over the years. You are always your own worst critic and no one is judging you as hard as you are judging yourself. This year I will allow myself to embrace creativity in a way that opens myself up to the judgment of others. If there is anything that you have held yourself back from trying or sharing with the world out of fear that no one will care or worse, that they will reject you, I challenge you to join me in deciding that it is time to be okay with trying something new, failing, and embarrassing yourself.
Comment on this post and let me know, what are you going to try this year?