Every week, I challenge myself to a Monday Dare. Click on the link if you’d like to see the complete list of Monday Dares or learn more about its origin.
This week: Stop comparing
I’m pretty sure my life would be a lot easier if I were smarter. I can’t be totally certain of this because to have that kind of unwavering confidence about something, I feel like you need to experience it firsthand. But I live with some smart people and I know a bunch. When they rattle off their drink order at Starbucks, they don’t even need to look at the menu board seven or eight times like I do. They can look at it once and be done with it. Sometimes, I think they do it just to show off, but I let them have their moment.
I cheated a lot in high school. I feel comfortable admitting this to you because even if the school takes my diploma away, I’ve been setting aside a Just In Case I Need To Pay For A GED fund. There’s almost three dollars in there, so fuck those bitches, I’m going to be legitimate either way.
There were always one or two kids in each class who aced everything without even cracking open a book. A handful of others did well because they were responsible and had good habits. One of my best friends graduated as valedictorian. I asked her once what I had to do to get better grades, and she told me the key was to study every day. I tried her method for a few weeks, but it really cut into my sleep.
I envied the smart kids immensely. I compared myself to them constantly and thought about how much easier their lives were going to be because they could diagram sentences like it was a motherfucking breeze and knew how to program fun games into their graphing calculators.
The popular kids made me feel all kinds of jealousy too. They were always debating the merits of one party invitation over another. They had a choice. Yes, I had choices for my Friday evening too, but watching the TGIF block of programming on ABC or asking random strangers Age/Sex/Loc in AOL chatrooms seemed less glamorous.
Even now, as an adult, I’m not one of those bitches with a shitload of friends. Every time I’m around a group of new people, I trip over my words and say extremely inappropriate things. Also, I start to sweat a lot, and it’s always a conversation killer when I have to excuse myself to get a paper towel to stick under my arm.
I’m never going to be one of those people who debates going out vs. staying in because she just knows she’s going to run into a dozen people as soon as steps into the streets who all want to say “hello” and make small talk because she’s just so much fun to be around. And I’m making peace with the fact that I can no longer answer any of Cal’s questions when she’s doing her homework.
I’ll just be me. Sweaty me.
