When I was twelve I liked a boy in science class. Following junior high protocol, I sent a friend to find out if he liked me too. I agonized at my lunch table while she probed at his lunch table, but I knew how to play it cool. I drank my milk like a school lunch pro. And when my friend made her way back I waited a very casual three seconds before demanding the scoop.
He liked me, but he didn’t like me.
Was it my glasses? (They were only as big as my entire face and maroon. They were cool.) Was it my braces? (They really were cool. My orthodontist let me pick THREE colors at a time. Awesome.) It couldn’t have been my hair. (It really couldn’t have been. My hair was cool. I owned a set of sponge curlers.)
Luckily I didn’t have to spend the rest of my adolescent years wondering why oh why I was rejected by my science class crush. He told my friend, who told her friend, who told me.
It was my “big mouth.”
I talked too much, too loud.
Being the totally cool twelve year old that I was, I said “Whatever.” And then I spent only a few million hours worrying about just how big my mouth was.
Now that I am a totally cool twenty-nine year old (I really am cool now. My glasses are green, not maroon. My permanent retainer is hardly detectable. I traded in my sponge curlers for a flat iron.) I am so totally over it. And when I decided to start this blog I only spent a few thousand hours worrying about what people would think of my big mouth. Would people ban me from their lunch tables if I talked too much? Would people refuse to sign my yearbook if I talked too loud?
Whatever.
Here’s to my latest endeavor: 365 consecutive days of my big mouth blogging. Thank you for sitting at my table.
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