The sirens sounded behind me as I rounded the corner in my beat-up Camry. It was late 1999; I was 21. It never feels good to get pulled over by the police, but when the cop told me I had an expired registration, I wanted to sink into the floor.
The notice to renew was hanging on my corkboard in my apartment. I’d been procrastinating for months, the little slip of paper shaming me every time I walked by it. It was my first time registering by myself and I had made a complete hash of it. I now owed late fees, in addition to the hefty registration cost. I very much could have used the money for something else. And I was going to get a ticket on top of it all.
What shamed me most was I had felt so competent just a few short months before, at my college graduation. I had been awarded a hefty scholarship, won a writing award, and graduated from my tough university with honors. But after all those successes, I came home and collapsed.
The cop looking at me pityingly through my driver-side window was just another reminder that my “competence” was thin. I could not seem to get my life together.
I thought of my woes as incompetence, anyway. The basic tasks I struggled with—paying rent on time, getting a job, cleaning up after myself—felt like learning a new language.What should have been simple was incredibly hard. Day to day, I felt as if I were moving through wet sand up to my waist. I hated my slowness.
I’m forty now, and the way I shamed myself back then still grieves me…
I was over at SheLoves Magazine yesterday, talking about how harsh I used to be to myself, and how learning to be more gentle as I learn has made all the difference. Join me there?
Learning to Be a Desert