An Important and Grave Matter: Confessions of a Human Being

I have an important and grave matter to share with you today because I can no longer deny the truth. The rumors are running rampant. It isn't easy to hide what's so obviously obvious anymore. And while I know this may be hard for some of you to accept because you're not ready to handle the truth, I'm confident that once you hear me out, you'll agree that even though facts are hard, they are facts. Are you ready? Here goes.

Confession: I am a human being.

I've always known I was a human being, even at an early age. I knew I was different as soon as I started reading off of Dixie Riddle Cups when I was four, and freaked people in the Foodtown grocery store line out when I was five by turning to my mom to ask why I Dream of Jeannie was divorcing her husband (read off the National Enquirer). While the other kids were perfect, not reading the National Enquirer headlines out loud in the grocery line and instead pretending to be pirates and pilots with personalized ships and planes, I was being human.

I went to school and made mistakes. One time, I got a 38 on a math test. A 38! Can you imagine? I laughed too loud and too often and put my brother in jail with air prison bars when he laughed at me instead of with me. I rode my bike to the forbidden 7-11 to get candy after school, and grumbled about having to set the table. Sometimes, I even grumbled about having to clear the table.

Now and then, when desperate or slightly afraid, not perfectly courageous, I even lied. To a friend, to my mother, to myself. I told myself I could be perfect. If I acted perfect, looked perfect, sounded perfect, eventually I would become perfect. No one would know I didn't always clean the house or cook food from scratch or take the garbage out on time. Being a human being was so hard. It seemed like the perfect people, you know who I mean, the ones in charge, the ones who judge us human beings, they seemed to have it down. And try as I might, I just couldn't be perfect.

I couldn't be the perfect student nor the perfect friend. I couldn't be the perfect daughter or the perfect girlfriend. Perfect Kristie simply didn't exist, especially at work where it seemed like all the rules favored the perfect. They even had a perfect rubric and a perfect pamphlet produced by the perfect Department of Education of the most perfect state. Normative perfect 24/7.

I don't know about you but whenever I've tried to be perfect for a 24/7 stint, or maybe even just for one class, things tend to go awry. I just can't suppress, repress, digress the human being in me. It's been there since the beginning and it will be there in the end.

In fifth grade I had this red short sleeved T-shirt with a picture of a string bean on it and the caption read, "I'm a human bean." As an experiment we should all, young, old, single, coupled, working, retired, get one to wear 24/7. And when someone asks about it, don't just confess, proclaim.