Get Started Right Writing Task: 007

For this week's Get Started Right Writing Task, write about one of your more vulnerable moments. Authors tell me all the time in our author spotlight series that learning to be vulnerable is a huge part of their writing success, but it's difficult to do. Our vulnerable moments are often the weak or soft spots of our selves, the parts that can make us feel uncomfortable to reveal for whatever reason. You can share in the comments below, sure, but you can also write it out for your eyes only at home. But start the process of diving deep emotionally.

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It took me a while to think this one out, because I've often prided myself on being open and being truthful, and this moment is actually a place where I was neither. It occurred in 7th grade when a kid (I think his name may have been Michael) came up to me in the hallway either before or between classes and said something along the lines of, "So, my mom told me that your mom told her that you are really into statistics."

It was not a malevolent statement. In fact, I think even at the time that Michael wanted to talk statistics with me, but I immediately said something like, "No, I hate statistics."

And then, there may have been some back and forth, but Michael left knowing that my mother misspoke and that I definitely did NOT like statistics at all. Which was a lie.

I actually have always loved statistics. I used to play the dice game Yahtzee all by myself for hours and hours over the summer, because I loved getting the different numbers and adding up the scores and then averaging the scores and figuring out probabilities of the best ways to apply my rolls in the game to get the best scores. I also loved diving into the statistics on the backs of baseball cards and taught myself how to calculate batting averages and earned run averages (because I lived in a time before the internet and Google, so this information was not easy to find). If there was a kid who loved statistics more than me, I did not know them.

Also, I was the weird sort of kid who marched to his own drummer growing up. I would do weird things with my style that might come into fashion later, but that were never in vogue when I was doing them. Like wearing my sweatpants with one leg down (the way it's supposed to be) and the other leg up to my knee (the way it's not). Or wearing button down shirts with the top button buttoned, but the rest of the buttons unbuttoned. Or whatever, and other kids would try to call me out on it, and I'd play along and act like my way was totally appropriate. All this to say that I wasn't afraid to be considered an odd duck and was a mostly open book at this stage of my life.

But still, when confronted on my love of statistics, I shut the book and lied.

Why?

It's a question that has followed me throughout my life.

Yes, this very small exchange that probably meant nothing to anyone else, including Michael, is one of those vulnerable moments that has followed me throughout my life, because it was so difficult to understand my own reaction. At the time, I wondered if it might be because I was afraid to reveal my love of statistics. Maybe I was afraid to share that I liked playing with numbers. Maybe. But I was one of a few kids in a special "extra" math class in our junior high school, and I took great pride in math abilities. So I don't think this was it.

Another possibility might have been, I thought in the years after, that I felt like maybe I didn't understand the rules of what "statistics" meant when mentioned by Michael. Maybe I was afraid of the unknown and thought I wouldn't stack up in his version of "statistics." But that didn't feel right either, because I was a kid who took (sometimes reckless) chances all the time, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I was a smart kid, but I also was a dumb kid (because I thought I was the smartest kid), and I'm sure I thought I could handle any statistics anyone threw at me.

No, it's taken years (and years) for me to figure this out about myself, but I think the reason I broke my own moral code by closing down and lying was actually very simple: I felt ambushed.

If the same Michael kid had come to me and asked me what I think of numbers and statistics, I probably would've been all too happy to jump in and start talking about them. In fact, if he mentioned that he was starting a statistics club, I would've probably been the first member...and probably would've started trying to make it the best statistics club that ever existed. But...

My mom telling his mom telling him, it felt like all these people had discussed my love for statistics behind my back, and now Michael had information about me through back channel conversations, and it was being sprung on me in the middle of a busy hallway in junior high school with no heads up. So yeah, when writing it out, it becomes clear as day: I felt ambushed.

Over the years, I've shared with a lot of people my love of statistics, including how I would spend hours and hours playing Yahtzee and deciphering baseball cards by myself. For some that might seem embarrassing, but I actually take pride in it. However, I'm the one controlling the story, because I'm the one who shares it. And maybe that's another factor, that sense of who is controlling the narrative. Maybe.

Maybe I'll continue re-rolling the dice on this moment for a few more years until I figure out the correct answer.