There's something really heart-squeezingly uncomfortable about seeing the truth of yourself written on a piece of paper. It's like looking at your most-hated photograph, the one with the unforgiving fluorescent lighting and the unflattering angle, the photo that in one brutal snap tells your whole ugly story, scars and all. Looking at it can make you squirm in your seat and turn your head away and scrunch your eyes closed in denial. You don't want other people to see you like that. You don't want to see yourself like that.
There's a lot going on in my life right now, even more than I write about here. (How can that be, you ask! It just can.) Like things of my own doing, things that I'm not proud of at all. Things that hit me in the side of the face like an angry fist when I'm going about my day, driving in traffic while devising inventions, or vacuuming two year old Cheetos from the corner of the living room and wondering how I live with such dirty boys. Rude reminders that slide down my back like icy fingers, that make my stomach nervous and uncomfortable and make me think, "Why do I feel so queasy? Oh yeah, it's because I'm doing something I'm not proud of."
I'm NOT talking about doing things like, well...this, for example:
Over the last three days (and I'm calling it three days because it makes me feel better but I have a sinking feeling that it's only been two days) I've eaten an entire package of Oreos. That's a net weight of 1 pound, two ounces of Oreos. 510 grams of Oreos. FORTY FIVE OREOS, give or take an OREO.
You might be thinking to yourself, "A whole package of Oreos? That's not so bad. People have done worse," and sure, people have done worse. But let's really examine this Oreo eating phenomenon a little closer.
1. I DON'T EVEN LIKE OREOS. As a matter of fact, I hate them. That white shit in the middle? What the fuck is it? It looks like shortening. It tastes only marginally better. I have never in my life met an Oreo that I remotely liked, yet I find myself faced with the fact that I ate a pound of them. You have no idea how sad that makes me.
2. That stuff in the middle of the Oreo? Yeah...it's not real. You know that, right? I mean, it's not a natural material found anywhere on the planet. It's manufactured in the same place that Twinkies and cockroaches are made - a top secret place where indestructible materials are made by scientists and the military. Because you know what will happen when a nuclear war goes down, don't you? All that will be left in the world will be cockroaches. They will be living in hollowed out Twinkies, using the cream fillings of Oreos as blankets. Because that shit is not going to burn. It will not be destroyed by the boiling flames of a thousand atom bombs. It will survive. Right now that very same cream filling is coating my arteries. When I die, all will decompose except my bones, which will be buttered with the thick layer of a pound of Oreo fillings. So. GROSS.
3. "Um...hello, Amanda? Hi. This is an Oreo calling." "Yes, Oreo. Can I help you?" "Well, yes, I was just calling to ask if you knew that I contained more gluten in one little half of my sandwich than a bowl of straight gluten. Did you realize you would actually eat less gluten if you walked over to Ol' Farmer Bill's field and chawed directly on a stalk of wheat?" "Why yes, Oreo, I did! I knew you were chock full of gluten, and I ate you anyway! Not just one of you, though...oh no. I ate a whole battalion of you. 'Cause I R DUMB."
What the hell is wrong with me? Telling you I'm ashamed of eating all those Oreos doesn't begin to cover it, but somehow I can still write about it. I won't be able to look you in the eye if I ever meet you, but I can still admit I did this thing. I'm not talking about writing about things like that. I'm talking about writing about things that are much harder to admit.
Today I was sitting here, thinking (a dangerous practice, to be sure), and I saw myself as someone who very carefully reveals to people only what she wants them to see. Everything I reveal is true, but only snippets, only sides. I can't bring myself to show all of me, to anyone. Not here, and not in "real life."
My whole life is a papier mache creation. The real me, that skeleton of chicken wire underneath all the paper and glue, it's hidden well under those strips. Each paper strip that I glue on top of the chicken wire is a part of me that's true and real, but it's meant to obscure. To keep you from seeing the chicken wire.
I can be a lot of things to a lot of people, but I only show the papier mache'd strip that I think a particular person wants to see (or what I want them to see) all the while hiding the rest. The crappy thing is - you can't hide from yourself. I can glue paper strips on my chicken wire frame all the live long day, but I already know about the ugly skeleton underneath. I can hide it for awhile, but the glue always starts to crack.
What got me thinking about all of this is that I found out some people I care about talking about me. Not just me, but about my behavior. It's nothing to be totally angry about. But... it got back to me, as these things tend to do, that what I thought was a piece of my chicken wire that I had glued down with so much paper that it would be impossible for that section of my frame ever to see the light of day, wasn't actually covered at all. 'Cause people talk. People you think you can trust will tell lots of other people what you told them in confidence, and next thing you know, you're the subject of a group email or a good laugh around the proverbial water cooler.
And as I tend to do when I'm discovered doing something I'm ashamed of, I got on my high horse. Well, how dare they! Who do they think they are anyway, talking about me like they're all perfect. They don't even know the whole story.
But what is the whole story? In telling the "whole story," would their view of my behavior change? Probably not much. Because the whole story, while maybe a slight bit less lascivious than they imagine, is still not good, and no amount of sugar-coating or papier mache is going to make it any less than what it is - which is not right. What I did/am doing is wrong. If I said, "Well, it's not like I'm doing 'X,' so the fact that I'm doing 'Y' isn't so bad," would people say, "Oh, okay! As long as you aren't doing 'X' then it's all good!" No, they wouldn't. If the tables were turned, would I be okay with someone else doing what I'm doing? No.
I hate hypocrites, and I hate being one so much more.
Even as I write all that, I still can't bring myself to write what I'm doing. "Hi. I'm Amanda. I'm doing ________, and I'm not proud of it at all." No, it's not like I killed someone or anything, but it doesn't matter. Right now I'm someone I never wanted to be, and I can't blame that on anyone but me. And all I can do is stop doing what I'm doing and try to change, and I'm not doing that either.
Which is probably why I ate a pound of Oreos - punishment by sandwich cookie. Trying to glue down the papier mache of my life with something indestructible like Oreo filling. Doesn't work, by the way.
