Human Slinky

Welcome to Tuesday’s with Chel.

Each week Chel Micheline of Gingerblue will offer her perspectives on our Bliss Habits. Please enjoy the wisdom and clarity she offers.

I gotta be honest- when I started tossing the idea of “humility” around in my head this last week, I kept thinking about the word “humiliation”. I just can’t seem to distance the two in my brain.

And I’m sure we all have moments and memories of complete and utter humiliation, right? And if we look closely enough, we can find some old-fashioned lessons in humility in those embarrassing moments- lessons that ground us and help us grow.

However, in the process of sharing one of my most humiliating experiences with a friend, I recently discovered something much bigger than an “old fashioned lesson in humility”. Instead, what I discovered has shifted my perception of both myself and the world around me and what humility is all about.

Before I explain my discovery, let me start at the beginning. Here, my dear friends, is my tale of humiliation:

When I was a freshman in high school (and yes, this was the same high school I talked about in this Bliss Habits post), I attended an on-campus orientation the day before school officially started. It was late August and all the students (both returning and new) were on campus, registering for classes, receiving their ID cards and books, and those that lived in the dorms were busy moving in for the year.

Because I went to art camp on the high school campus earlier that summer, I was already very familiar with the entire layout of the school. I didn’t need a tour, or instructions on how to find the library, dining hall, art studio, etc. After I got my ID card and my books, I basically was done for the day and had a few hours to kill.

Besides knowing the campus in and out, there was another benefit from attending camp – I already knew a few of the kids who attended the school. I bumped into them during the orientation and I was relieved to see familiar faces because I felt a little lost in this crush of people. They seemed happy to see me too, and one of them invited me to spend the afternoon with her so that I could skip the “welcome new students!” seminars and hang out with her and her friends and meet lots of great people.

I welcomed the opportunity because I really didn’t know many people but I *wanted* to know many people. I wanted to just be part of the school, part of the community without the awkwardness of finding my place within it.

The first thing on my friend’s schedule was an assembly for returning students, so we rushed across campus to the performing arts building where the assembly was being held. We were late, so when we got to the auditorium, there were about 400 students already seated, waiting for the assembly to begin.

The performing arts center was basically a little theater- but instead of the stage being elevated, it was a circular “pit” of sorts, and the seats sort of ascended up and away from the stage in a half-circle. Think stadium seating, like at a baseball game or the movies. You entered the room at the back of the seats and walked down a stairway in the center of the rows of seats to reach the stage.

My friend and I were standing on the top level of the stairway, next to the highest row of seats, scanning for any openings. As we tried to figure out where we were going to sit, the headmaster of the school walked to the podium, cleared his throat, and called the room to order. He chastised those of us not sitting, staring pointedly at my friend and me since we were the only ones without seats.

There were snickers and whispers as the assembled hundreds of teenagers followed the headmaster’s gaze, zeroing in on my friend and me. In addition to having an entire room of teenagers (and my future teachers) staring at me, I was concerned the headmaster might call me out for being a new student at the wrong assembly so I felt very uncomfortable and just wanted to find a seat. The only seats available were at the very front of the theater- way down at the bottom, right at the “foot” of the stage.

When my friend began to quickly descend the stairs towards the front of the auditorium, I followed her.

However, before I even got myself down ONE step, I somehow tripped over my own feet. Propelled forward, my body went into motion and I began this crazy slow-motion-tripping-loping sort of thing down the stairs.

Once I started, I couldn’t stop myself. It would have better if I had just fallen down on my face, but I just kept going, like I was some weird human Slinky. My legs were loping up and forward like I was jumping over hurtles, and my arms were windmilling around in an effort to keep myself balanced and try to stop the forward motion. I’m sure I was making some sort of screechy “whoooooaaaaaa” noise, as well.

My little “journey” took a few minutes to complete since there were about twenty rows of seats. And since I kept tipping backwards a bit and pausing between each step due to my crazy arm motions, I managed to draw it all out even longer.

It was epic, in the WORST way. This all happened in the CENTER of the auditorium, right in the middle of the seats. And since attention was on me to begin with (thanks to the headmaster) EVERYONE SAW THIS HAPPEN. All 400 returning students. All the faculty and staff.

After I finally came to a stop at the bottom (in the MIDDLE OF THE STAGE since it took me a few steps to stop my forward motion after my body finished loping down the stairs) there was silence. And then a round of applause. Then the room broke out into HUGE laughter. I turned inward on myself and found my seat and tried not to cry.

If I did something like that now, I’d bow, and laugh, too. I’d still feel a little funky- I always do when I trip, which sometimes happens cause I walk a little funny, but you know, I’ve learned that the best way to approach my health problems is with a HUGE sense of humor.

But when I was 13, I didn’t get that. I despised myself, for the most part, and this just added to my lack of self-worth. It took a very long time to recover from my little Human Slinky ordeal- in fact, I still have issues with stadium seating and public staircases without rails.

So if you would have told me back then that the whole experience would change my life when I was the grand old age of 37, I would have laughed at you. But it’s actually the truth.

Here’s why- after 24 years of sharing this story and reliving it in my head, I finally realized something HUGE about humiliation: NO ONE REALLY CARES.

(I’m not saying that flippantly, or cruelly. It’s just an honest fact.)

See, I’ve been re-connecting with some fellow alumni of that same high school. We’ve been sharing many stories, and one theme that comes up an awful lot is “what was your most humiliating moment at high school?” So I have shared my Human Slinky story, and a few of the people I have shared the story with were actually AT that assembly and saw the whole thing go down.

The ironic thing is… most of them don’t remember it. Not at all. And if they do remember it, they don’t remember that it was me, or they don’t remember it taking so long to happen, or forget even the broad details. They have to dig around for the memory, if it’s even in their minds.

Hmmmm…. How is it possible that this defining moment in my adolescence slipped past the notice of all these people? I know they saw it- it would have been impossible to NOT see it.

It’s because every one of the people in that room had their *own* humiliating moments going on. Maybe not at that very moment, but in the same time frame. And every person in that room had tons of humiliating moments yet to come. And when those people think of embarrassing stories to share, they aren’t thinking of my Human Slinky moment, they have a collection of their own humiliations to draw upon. We *all* do.

Every moment of every day, we’re creating our own experiences and memories. We’re a very self-involved species. We notice one another, and if we’re brave and loving, we connect in some way, but the honest truth is that most of us forget 99% of those experiences.

I’ve interacted and/or been in in the vicinity of thousands of people in the span of my lifetime- most of us have. Without realizing it I have probably been witness to hundreds of humiliating moments, hundreds of happy moments, hundreds of funny moments, and hundreds of heart-aching moments. But I remember very few of those, if any. The moments I remember are my own, those I have been directly part of.

That’s just human nature.

Where am I going with this? Well, next time you start worrying about how you looked, or if you sounded like an idiot, or if anyone saw you trip over the edge of the carpet in the restaurant, remember this: it really doesn’t matter.

Don’t get me wrong- it matters a TREMENDOUS AMOUNT that you be a kind, respectable person and you treat others with dignity and respect . That’s what humility is. But instead of wasting your time mulling over the past, sitting up stark-straight in the middle of the night, re-living your worst and most humiliating moment, how about investing emotional energy in the present, in the interactions we have yet to have?

I’m not sure if anyone remembers my little “fall from grace” that first day of high school. What I do know for sure is that if anyone does, it wasn’t nearly as big of a deal as I thought it was. It may have scarred *me* for life, but it didn’t really change anyone’s perception of me.

So next time you worry about the fact you went out with your shirt sticking up in the back or cringe over the time you walked around your college campus with a parking placard hanging from your ponytail for an entire day (yes, that happened to me, too, but I’ll save that story for another time…), remember: it doesn’t matter, and no one cares. All that does matter is kindness, love, and respect.

Just make sure you share some of that kindness, love, and respect with yourself, too.

(Do you have any humiliating stories? If you are willing, share them in the comments- let’s all commiserate together!)