I didn't kill anyone.

When I walked into class today my professor looked me up and down. "You look horrible." She said.

"Well, I think you look really pretty, so now things are awkward."

"Are you feeling ok? You look...sad."

I didn't really stop to examine why this woman insisted on playing therapist. If anyone asks me how I am feeling I will plunge on happily because there is very little in life I love more than talking about myself.

"I think I just got into a fight with my husband and I'm beginning to think that maybe it was my fault and I have too many balls in the air and I just dropped them all in fact I think I completely lost a few and I don't know how to do anything right now and I'm really confused and angry and so fucking tired of being around myself all of the time." I took a breath. "Also, I think I'm going to throw up."

She sent me home.

Brett had called me out on a few things earlier in the day and he was absolutely and totally right. And because there is nothing worse than your husband being absolutely and totally right, I handled it with about as much grace as a four year old in high heels. Which is sort of what I was feeling like right now: a child playing dress up. A representation of what a child thinks an adult is supposed to be, when they really just look like a drunk midget stumbling about.

I was beginning to feel like a drunk midget. That makes sense probably only to me.

I haven't always made the best decisions but I have to trust that I'm doing more right than wrong and I have to trust that I will learn from my mistakes. This territory feels so uncharted sometimes and I often feel like I am doing this without a compass. It's frustrating and tiresome, and I'm often completely lost- but sometimes the scenery is unexpectedly beautiful.

************

The other day I was at a Blockbuster with a friend recounting in gory detail my neighbor's fight from the night before. Basically, at 2am the married couple next door had tried to kill each other, and I was pretty certain that one of them had succeeded.

"Did you call the cops?" he asked. A rational question.

"THEY WERE BEATING EACH OTHER. What if they found out I called? Then they might BEAT ME." Even as the words came out I was ashamed. I'd like to think I am a generally good person, but no, I hadn't called the cops. Instead I had clutched my mace, sitting upright in bed. I don't know who I was expecting to mace or why I needed a weapon. It's not like they were clubbing each other in my living room, but whatever.

To his credit, he was gentle on me and didn't tell me I was a horrible human being. He even admitted that, in the same situation, he wasn't sure what he would do either. Still gripped with my shame I spun on my heel to face him.

"Oh my God. I didn't even check to see if she was dead! Do you think I should? She could just be there, DEAD right now!"

At this point we were standing at the counter, about to pay for my movie. The cashier held it in mid-air as she gazed at me, horrified. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I feel the need to tell you that what I heard you just say sounded really, really bad."

"Oh. You think I killed someone don't you?"

She gaped back at me.

I didn't even explain, I just grabbed my movie and left shouting over my shoulder: "You have my information in the database! In case you really think I did anything which I didn't!"

My friend turned to me incredulously as we rushed out. "Now she is really going to think you killed someone. Why did you say that?!"

"I don't know!" I cried. "I don't know why I say most of the things I do!"

"Well, look at it this way: now the cops will show up and you can point them in the right direction."

The cops never showed up, so this girl is an asshole too. She missed her chance at being a decent human being SO I'M NOT ALONE. It did make me think though and realize that: 1. I can never go back into that Blockbuster again, and 2. I needed to grow the fuck up and stop being a whiny little girl.

Sometimes during this challenge I have moments of unexpected greatness. I've blown myself away (in a really humble fashion) with how I've handled this trial. More often, however, I'm a drunk midget and I don't want to be a drunk midget any longer. I want to fill those big girl shoes and work it. It's as simple as JUST DOING IT and setting my can of mace down for awhile.

This post is filled with many analogies and even a Nike slogan, so I know it's confusing. My point is: figure out the kind of person that you are and own it. Make mistakes, but learn from them. Never, ever allude to murdering someone because people don't forget that shit and I'm probably going to get arrested.

Most of all, tell your husband that he is right. Because he is. This time.