Embarrassed As a Factor of Age

Am I getting older and care less or am I more confident because I’m just older?   I don’t know the answer to this but I do know I don’t get embarrassed very often.   Sure, I get embarrassed from time to time, but usually it’s for something I did I should have known better about.   It’s rarely from feeling like I don’t fit in or worrying if people like me or if I’m, “cool”.

I remember high school, junior-high even, where I feel like I was nerve ends all over and the slightest thing was a worry if I was doing the best thing to fit in, or even if I was fitting in.    I think most of us felt that way during our school years.   Maybe you were in the super popular crowd and were prom queen but I fell more in line with the Math Club and Computer Science Geek groups than I did the popular crowd.

I had friends though and my friends were well and true friends.   That doesn’t mean I didn’t spend a reasonable portion of the time feeling embarrassed for things I did, didn’t do, said, didn’t say, wore or didn’t wear.  

This all occurred to me because I got embarrassed about something recently.   Funny thing is, I don’t even remember what it was as I’m writing this, but I know it happened.   Is there some sort of diagram for this?   As you grow older your confidence increases while caring what other people think decreases?

The Big Boy Update:  While we were camping my son was running around on the shore.   He told Papa he was doing T.P.   When Papa asked, my son said it was getting his heart beating.   Papa asked, “do you mean, ‘P.E.’?”   My son said, “yeah, P.E.”.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  One of my favorite readers asked me what happened with my daughter’s bedding change.   He was right, I’d talked about it, ordered the new bedding and then hadn’t reported results back here.  We had ordered a mattress pad that we added to make my daughter more comfortable from below.  She then selected all purple sheets with purple owl motif comforter for the upper parts of her bedding.   It arrived in the mail and she has liked it all so far—especially the owl stuffed animal included in the bedding bag.  We have had nights with less incidents where she arrives downstairs, upset, cold, or scared.   But my daughter’s not okay every night or all through the night yet.   We have flash lights on our night stands so she can walk herself back upstairs.   Last night the flashlight I gave her (which she had selected from the dollar store) was apparently too bright and she started crying immediately upon turning it on and moving it around saying, “it’s too creepy!”   I took her upstairs in my arms the traditional way and put her back in her bed, which she immediately was happy about as she cuddled up to her owl and was warmly wrapped in her purple comforter.   Overall?  The new bedding has been a win.  I like the purple owls.