Confessions

I like to think of myself as a good person. I pride myself on following the most basic rules of society, on acting with the conscious goal of not hurting others. Yet I know I am not as good, as nice as I would like to be. With that in mind, I started making a list of my transgressions, with the intention of sharing them on this post. I was halfway through number one when I pictured my lawyer husband warning me about the sheer idiocy of what I was doing. Do I really want to have a written record of my peccadilloes for posterity?

I also remembered the stories about companies regularly checking the blogs and MySpace pages of employees and potential recruits, and of people being fired or passed over for jobs because of the contents of their blogs (can you say dooce?). My blog is public, my face is plastered all over it, I sign it in my name. It truly is a risk. So I stopped myself, and now I am left with nothing but disappointment at the fact that I self-censored my blog. I have always had this wonderful, idealized notion that my blog was going to be the one space for true self-expression, so I hate it when grown-up reality intrudes.

And yet, even though I will not share most of my less-than-stellar experiences, I can share the one memory that got me thinking about this subject. It is one of my worst moments, and I am ashamed of it. I have never before shared it with anybody.

When I was growing up, I had a best friend. We went to a small school together, from kindergarten through sixth grade, except for one year when my mom moved me to public school. I loved my friend very much, but once we went to different middle schools, we sort of drifted apart, although I still learned about her life from mutual friends who I ocassionally heard from. And once in a blue moon we would see each other at the mall. We went to different universities, on opposite sides of the island. She became an engineer, as her family wanted to, then put her title aside, got married and worked as an event planner. Or at least that is what I heard.

My shameful memory comes from the time Paula was an infant. Details are sketchy, so I can't remember exactly how old Paula was when I found myself sitting accross the room from my old friend at a pediatrician's packed waiting room. I know she was still in her baby bucket carrier, so she was pretty young. I remember noticing my friend and then deliberately pretending I had not recognized her. She did not make any kind of acknowledgment that she had recognized me either. I wonder what went through her mind.

At the time I was so embarrassed about my life that I dreaded saying hi. What was I going to say, that I was unhappily married, miserable at work and most likely depressed? That I could not even breastfeed my baby full time? That I, the smartest kid in our class, now worked as a receptionist because I did not have the guts to stay in law school? She looked great, and I looked so fat and ugly, I could not face her. Trying to avoid humiliation, I did one of the things that I most despise, acted like a jerk and ignored someone I once cared deeply about.

I never saw my childhood friend again, and now I live in Texas, so there is little chance of running into her again. In hindsight, I wish I could apologize to her for my stupidity.