Cringe-worthy thoughts at 4 am

Remember that one time you were awkward, and you tried to laugh it off, but it made it worse, so you just kind of slinked away wishing you had an invisibility cloak or whatever Jim Carry had in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to go inside a person’s brain and pluck out any memory you ever existed?

Just me?

When I was six or seven, I stole a pack of notepads from an office supply store, and my mom made me face the store clerk alone to return them.

In third grade, I cheated on a spelling test. My teacher caught me looking down at a paper in my lap with the list of vocabulary words. She was everyone’s favorite teacher and pregnant at the time. I made the pregnant teacher sad. That’s when I learned disappointment was so much worse than anger.

I cringe when these thoughts bombard my brain.

Once, I said Nick’s co-worker’s apartment was a “dump” in front of other friends. We were talking about how expensive housing is in Santa Barbara and how we pay so much for so little. I was going for commiseration but came out sounding like an asshole.

These things sound completely normal inside my head, but when I speak them out loud, they are inappropriate and out of place; I wonder if I need therapy or, at the very least, a class in manners.

In my twenties, I was a server in a Mexican restaurant. Three women sat in my section and ordered, but I forgot to ring in one of the entrees. The restaurant started to fill up by the time I noticed, and they waited an extra 20 minutes for their food. After she finally got to eat, I offered to buy her dessert. She said, “Well, it is my birthday.”

A few years later, I was a server in a fine dining steak house. I forgot about a table in my section for over an hour. They just sat there eating bread and drinking water. The manager bought their meal, and we sent them home with a dessert. She ordered the apple pie; I gave her the cheesecake instead. She was my Spanish professor.

I think about these embarrassing moments, and many others like them at least once a week. I wonder if the other person thinks about me too, and then I remember no one thinks about me as much as I think about them thinking about me.

But why do these images haunt me so? Why can’t I replace my four-am worrying with memories where I am funny, or clever or the hero? I have a lot of memories like that. Why do I torture myself? My hunch is, that it’s easier to accept a bad review of ourselves than it is to accept a good one, even if the reviewer is you.

I once listened to a guided affirmation where the teacher asked you to think about all of the thoughts in your head as occupying a seat in a big stadium. When a thought comes in that is no longer serving you, politely ask that thought to vacate their seat and invite a new thought to sit in its place.

I think I’ll try that tonight. The negative thought in seat H56 is going to have to move.

This is where I am today. Thank you for listening.