I’ve just been on a wonderful beach holiday in South Africa. The day I was packing to go my husband found a stash of my dirty underwear in one of the suitcases. The last time we travelled was to London in August, so they must have been in there since then! Nice.
Well I thought this was the funniest thing and hoped all my Facebook friends would think so too. So I mentioned it in my status. As expected, loads of people ‘liked’ it and gave various LOLs and thumbs’ up. But what I didn’t expect was the number of people, while thinking it was funny, were shocked that I had confessed to it on a public forum like Facebook. Then when I came back from holiday, someone at church told me they had laughed for three days after reading the post, but not because of what happened, but the fact that I’d ‘gone public’ about it.
Now I think that’s very strange. What is there to be ashamed of? I would be deeply ashamed, for instance, to share some moral failing on a public forum, like the time I … no, better stop there … But some dirty underwear? That’s not naughty or bad it’s simply funny.
But it got me thinking that we all deal differently with our shame. For some people admitting they’ve done something wrong or silly is beyond mortifying, for others, like me, it’s just an excuse to have a good laugh. We’re all different. And thank God for that!
There are some parallels between my own take on life and that of my fictional heroine Natalie Porter in The Peace Garden. Like the time she got caught on a string of barbed wire while hiding in a hedge and spying on a good looking boy. And if you look close enough, I’ve still got the scar to prove it 😉
If you would like more news of my dirty underwear and other exploits, you can follow me on Facebook.
