Sometimes I empathize with kids wearing braces. I know from experience how frustrating it can be, but I tell them just to hold on. Although a lot of adults wear braces, too; it’s actually part of being young. We go through a lot of awkward moments in life and most of them, if not all, happen when we’re young. Yes, we have to test our wings before we can soar through life. Unfortunately, sometimes it can be painful and totally mortifying. Admit it  even if we had the best childhood, we still experience those things that we’d like to spend the rest of our lives forgetting.
There are those incidents that happen when you’re very young and you have no idea that you’re embarrassing yourself already. My parents told me about a time our village had a street Mass. The Mass had gotten to the part where everyone was in silent prayer. Even if the Mass was held in the street, it was dead quiet.
Suddenly, the solemn silence was shattered by a very crisp and very loud curse word. All the people whipped their heads around to look at who had cursed. It was a little girl, not even five years old, who had cried out the offensive word. That little girl, apparently, was me.
I laughed hard when I heard that because I had no idea that I had done that. My parents said they felt like dying because everyone saw it was me, but that they understood because I was too young. (They still can’t figure out how I had learned that word at that early age.) These events, although hilarious, don’t really count because I had no idea that I did it. As time passes by, I started to cause my own notorious moments.
I can recall a lot of stupid things I went through when I was a kid. When I was in fourth grade, I had a major crush on this local teen actor. He was kind of cute, and that was enough for me to decide that he was my perfect guy. I put magazine covers with his face on them inside my cabinet doors. I even added magazine clippings about him on the doors. I kept an autographed picture of him in my personal album and had a T-shirt with his huge face on it. One time, I even wore the T-shirt to school. We were supposed to wear white shirts for this activity in P.E. and I proudly wore the shirt. The shirt was about two sizes too big for me, but I simply tucked in the ends into my green P.E. shorts. A third of his face disappeared but it was OK with me, as long as I had a part of him with me.
You notice that I’m not telling you his name. You see, years later, I cringe every time my classmates even mention his name to me. They still remember how I swooned about him and how I got all defensive when someone made fun of him. They even remember that stupid T-shirt! I don’t even know what happened to that T-shirt. How could I have been so deluded? I don’t think I’ll ever live that down.
It’s really funny how everyone remembers the funny (read: embarrassing) things that you do. Even now that I’m a teenager, I still have awkward moments. They’re usually the firsts I go through. During my first dance, my dress tore. Five minutes into high school my teacher reprimanded me for being talkative. The first time I drove a Trooper, I almost ran over a guy on a motorcycle. (It was his fault.) The first time I said the Panatang Makabayan in front of a crowd, I forgot some of the words. A lot of people mess up during their first times because, well, it’s their first time! They’re still getting used to things and trying to learn how to do them.
Of course, not all of them are first-time slip-ups. Sometimes we just go through things almost all kids have to go through. Like I said, I spent four years wearing braces. Other times, puberty gets the best of us and our hormones go insane.
We may wish that most of these things never happened to us but the truth is, these things help build who we are. They help us build character and inner strength. We learn from all the things we go through and we emerge better and hey, more interesting people. They may be embarrassing, but I assure you, you will tell all these stories about your younger awkward self again and again all through your life.
And hey, do you really stop doing mortifying things as you get older? I still have crushes on teen stars but I have better taste, thank God. Maybe that’s what happens when you get older. It’s just your taste that changes but you remain young at heart. Inside, you’re still the kid that does awkward things. I guess deep inside, we’ll always be a little bit awkward.