One of the great things the Eric McCormack concert re-instilled in me was how awesome it is to just own your embarrassing stories.
Sometimes when I tell stories of times I messed up a performance or embarrassed myself (which happens on the reg), I sort of tell them with this apologetic, excuse-filled “well, I wasn’t as experienced,” or “well, I was really tired,” on and on, etc.
But it’s not fun to see someone kind of squirm and not be able to laugh at herself.
It is fun to see someone go over the top with his explanation of how he couldn’t quite reach a note (as Eric did in a story about Godspell).
Or to hear about how someone fell one pose/dance move behind the two other girls onstage, and just went with it for the next couple measures – as if she were on some special choreography track (which would be something that happened to me once in high school).
I have a friend who was fired from his dream job for a crazy thing he did. (Now he has an even better job which he adores. So, things seem to be working out okay.)
Anyway, I won’t give any details of his story, since this is the internet. But I will say that if someone loses his dream job, it would be easy to tell that story in an embarrassed or sad way – to only tell it with a martini in your hand and a tear in your eye.
But he tells it as this hilarious romp that almost seems like a plot to a movie. He makes it sound like an adventure (and hilarious story). And I adore that about him. I look up to him for that (as he does that with every embarrassing thing ever), and he makes me want to be more like that.
Basically, when it comes to the mistakes we make in life, it seems to me it’s more wonderful to laugh, be positive, and entertain your friends; than it is to try to hide. (I’m not sure that means I’ll never hang my head from embarrassing moments. But a girl can try!)
Just own it, y’all. Own it hard.