Honor

• Part 1: Love

Honor

My guilty conscience is one I would bet on if there was a contest to see how bad a person can possibly feel. There is absolutely no way in hell I would lose. I’m sure this stems from a Catholic complex, being the entire focus of my parent’s acute attention and feeling an anxiety inducing need to prove myself in an affluent area. Also, if I had a quarter for every time someone said to me, “What’s wrong with you?” I would be the most popular gambling-obsessed old lady on a trip to Atlantic City (they play the quarter slots, right? Or is that pennies...) 

This popped into my head yesterday and illustrates my point relatively well. I was in a play in middle school where I actually had a supporting role for once (my director in middle school hated me for unknown reasons.) Do you want to know what I was? I was a french maid and because it was middle school I had long sleeves a knee-length skirt and tights on. I swear, I don’t think a french maid character has ever been so covered up and prudish. We had to perform the show twice during school hours on opening day (which was awesome because we got to skip class.) We were eating lunch in the gym where the youngest kids in school were also partaking in lunch. I threw a chip at my friend (pretty sure I was provoked) she blocked it, the chip exploded when her elbow hit it out of my hand and you’d think that should be the end of the story. No, I was pulled outside with the other girl involved, and a couple kids that had apparently been exploding chip bags. Our group of rambunctious hooligans received a stern talking to. They threatened to take my part away, told us we couldn’t bow in the next show and told us we had to apologize in front of the entire cast for our behavior since we had set a bad example. So, while crying, I apologized to the entire group…for ALMOST throwing a chip. I cannot tell you how guilty I was for having practically pelted a friend with a salty snack. I didn’t get over it for months.

Whilst driving a friend’s car in Chicago one summer I absentmindedly T-boned another car – I was completely lost at the time. The owner of the now nose-less vehicle wasn’t in the car at the time; I was actually going to meet him at the field museum. No one was hurt; the police even said if there was such thing as a “good accident” this was it. The damage to the cars was minimal, they were definitely still drivable, but I swear I cried all the way back to Missouri. The whole time I was thinking my parents were going to make me move back to Kansas and go to community college because of my mistake. I kept thinking I would never meet anyone to marry me; that I had no future. A friend in the car told me at some point you have to stop caring what your parents think and everyone else for that matter, you live for yourself. Even then I knew she was right and to this day I haven’t been able to stop caring.

I’ve apologized for a number of things I never should have taken the blame for and many more things that were most definitely my fault. Things that weren’t that bad, that I was never able to explain, that I took upon myself in order to put an end to something and that someone else caused. It’s relatively easy (except that I like to repeat scenarios in my head over and over dwelling on what I should have done differently.) I have a knack for convincing myself that I’m terrible for whatever I’ve done, I can even perfectly justify why I think I’m the worst person in the world and my life is going to be over. 

Life is entirely too short of these shenanigans, but there's the rub. Everyone knows life isn’t fair. We are well aware of this fact, it’s like knowing you’re going to die one day, but that doesn’t mean we don’t bitch about it. And to avoid being  a terrible person (what does that even mean?) or too bitchy, or bratty etc., I just take it. Don’t get me wrong, if someone was harassing a friend of mine or saying inappropriate things or being racist or something I wouldn’t hesitate to fight about it (and I mean fisticuffs kind of fighting) it’s the smaller things, the passive things that I kind of curl up and take. The grey areas where some people are never held accountable and their conscience isn’t as outrageous as mine. Those in between times when the blame lies on both parties, where there's a difference between standing up for yourself, asking for what you want and being selfish or crossing a line. But then who's right? Who can even judge without knowing both sides, truthfully, with no embellishment?No one.

It's where taking responsibility resides, where you could say honor lives and stuff and junk. Honor sounds like Knights of the Round Table pinky promises and things that aren't things anymore (speaking of pinky promises, my little sis in Big Brothers Big Sisters had never heard of a pinky promise... is that like an old person thing?) Let's be real, you know it's true about "honor." Chivalry is for the most part dead, and honor is kind of going extinct, at least it's on the endangered species list.

I'm no better than anyone else, don't get me wrong. I definitely don't think I'm more honorable (I don't even think people of this generation really contain what was once known as honor, it's like an appendage we evolved without.) I make mistakes (tons of them), wear my heart on my sleeve, cuss too much, talk too loudly, vent, care too much, come off crazy and complain. I'm just really good at punishing myself for being...hm...less than honorable? I wonder how much of a sonofabitch I would be if I just ran wild and crazy without beating myself up all the time. You know that saying that we are our biggest critics? Yea, that's the gospel truth. Well, most of us are at least.

Seriously, if you think your conscience could beat mine in arm wrestling we should throw down guilt and regret stories. I bet mine could take yours.

Basically this was my confession to being my own worst enemy, like that Pink song.