I have learned a few things in the past week. One is that a really big fight can feel really good. Two is that even though it feels good, yelling at your spouse in front of others is not the best idea, especially if one of those others text messages him later to ask "Is everything okay? ;)" because then you will want to punch her in the neck. But the best thing I learned in the past week is that we ALL have shit in our pasts that we either regret or are embarrassed of or can't defend or have no explanation other than, He/She just made me so CRAZY. We all do. I thought I was the worst one, but we all have stories of bad behavior and times we should have counted to 10 but instead threw red wine at a loved one in a restaurant. If you think you don't, then you are either a) in denial, b) on the verge of an explosion that will make Mt. St. Helens say, Damn she was pissed, or c) boring.
My confession (or cautionary tale, depending on how you read it) was a little hard to write and make public, because HELLO I AM THE BAD GUY IN IT, and also because marriage issues are kind of tedious and boring and totally not snarky or glam to read about, but the response I got was so, so good, because I realized that I - like all of you - am human. Human! Not perfect, but still okay! And now I feel better.
So much better that I've decided to confess other wrong-doings and unsavory deeds. So much so that I am inviting you to do the same. Post your confessions and embarrassing stories in the comments, sign a real name or sign Elizabeth Taylor, I don't care. But let it out! It's Girls Gone Bad, without all the boobies! Men Gone Bad, with even less boobies! Really, I promise you, it feels good to admit you were bad.
Like the time I yelled into the phone, "GET THE FUCK OFF MY PHONE" to the asshole at the Post Office who was trying to tell me that the only way to forward my mail to my new address was for me to wait for the postman to come to my building and tell him and only him that I was moving, only the asshole at the Post Office kept saying "Hey, Lady..." in a very, VERY obnoxious voice, and telling me it was impossible that my roommate's mail was getting forwarded to my new address even though I HAD MOVED IN WITH MY HUSBAND AND MY ROOMMATE'S MAIL WAS GETTING FORWARDED TO MY NEW ADDRESS.
Or that when I left my job as a recruiter for a large retail brand, I found some old resumes in the back of a drawer that were dated about three years before I found them, and I threw them away without thinking twice.
And I should probably come clean about leaving the coat closet in my old apartment full of crap when I moved out.
And if we're talking about apartments, when I had to move out of my first apartment in New York because the landlord discovered that we had sublets who weren't on the lease, and raised the rent by$500 a month, my friend Jay and I pulled up all the pretty tulip bulbs we had planted in the little garden in back and also kicked some of the slate slabs we had laid, and basically wreaked some of the gayest, prissiest havok in the history of vandalism. And I didn�t clean the bathroom before moving.
I once worked for someone who had season tickets to the Knicks, and he put me in charge of selling the tickets whenever he wasn't attending the games (and people wonder why I didn't want to stay in finance...it's because assholes treat female assistants like wives instead of co-workers, which makes me fear how they treat their wives). He made me post online looking for buyers, he made me CALL TICKET BROKERS and pretend to want seats in his section to get quotes on what I should ask for the tickets. He would get mad if I went below face value + 20%. He was awful, but my confession is that the Knicks went to the playoffs that year, and I sold tickets to one of the games to a trader on the Canadian desk who called me the next day to tell me I gave him the wrong ticket, that it was the quarter finals, not semi finals, or semi finals, not quarter finals...I still don't know which comes first or what really happened, but the guy was pissed, even though he was able to get in with the wrong ticket. The problem was that if the Knicks won another round, they would play in the semi or quarter or whatever final game, and that ticket had already been used by the angry Canadian trader guy. And the Knicks kept winning, and I nearly developed an ulcer. I would cry before going to work every day, and then magically, I got a job offer in fashion and was able to QUIT AND LEAVE before ever telling my boss that I may or may not have screwed him out of a playoff ticket. I have no idea how it ended, except that the Knicks went to the finals that year.
And speaking of fuck-ups at work, I once sent a less-than-kind email about my boss TO my boss. And now I always, always, ALWAYS fill in the "To:" section LAST, and double check it.
I phone-screen my parents.
I almost always pick up my dog's poo when she goes outside, but sometimes I don't. I also pretend not to wake up when she needs to go in the middle of the night and make my husband take her instead.
I frequently buy treats like pastries or brownies or cupcakes for my husband and me, but eat mine right away and then regret it. So I eat his too, before he gets home, and never mention that cupcakes were ever in the apartment at all.
I color my hair a lot because I started getting grey hair when I was about 18 and now there is A LOT of it and I must color. I must!
When I was a teenager my friends and I cranked called people a lot (because we were dorks) and one time we told a woman that we had an affair with her husband, which is not a nice thing to say at all. In hindsight, two giggling 14-year-olds probably weren't that threatening or convincing, but I always felt bad about it.
I almost never mop my floors. I have lived in my apartment for four years and I think I�ve mopped the kitchen 3 times.
I fired my maid of honor and haven't spoken to her since. And I did it over email. (There is a LOT more to that story, I promise you, and I fired her over email because she wouldn't return my calls, but still, I am not proud of it. She is - was - the Toxic Friend I have written about many times.)
The night we got married, I spent about 15 minutes trying to get all the pins out of my hair (I swear to you, there were at least 53) and when I finally did, Kent was sound asleep and we most certainly did not have hot newly-married sex that night.
I have broken at least 4 wine glasses by throwing them across various rooms. Always in private, but still not a mature way of handling anger.
I once purposefully stepped on - and broke - a hideous pair of my husband's sunglasses because they were so ugly and he kept wearing them even though I told him they were ugly. And they were. Ugly.
I (for the most part) only post good photos of me on this site. I have posted a few bad pictures, but I do some serious editing before I decide to put pictures up. Becuase I am really, really, REALLY un-photogenic. Really. I can't smile naturally and I get squinty and puffy and pasty and I would say I have a 1-to-10 good/bad picture ratio. Maybe even lower.
I used to be 25 lbs heavier and have really short hair.
I yelled at a little kid in a mall one time, in front of her mother.
I called in sick on Monday when I wasn't, not really. And now I am sick, and I feel like crap, and all I can think of is that if Karma were always this efficient, I would be in big trouble.
Now it's your turn - confess away (de-lurking feels SOOOOO good!)...
