Kelly Owens

A LIFE LESSON FROM ED DEBEVIC

“I did what?” I asked my mom, mouth gaping, eyebrows furled together in utter confusion. We had been sorting through old photos when I stumbled across a particularly interesting one of myself. Picture it: A little girl with rosy cheeks and a chubby round face. I’m sporting some super hip bangs that are sticking to my (still) oversized forehead. My stringy blonde hair is falling beneath my shoulders and onto my hot pink zip-up sweatshirt. My white Keds appear to be skating over the checkerboard floor, and I’m grinning from ear to ear. There are people sitting in booths and at the bar in the background of the photo. They’re all laughing at me, some of them appear to be clapping. I must be five years old.

“You won that dance competition in Chicago, don’t you remember?” My mom asks me, incredulous. 

In 2000, my family and I took a trip to Chicago with our family friends. On this particular night, we decided to dine at Ed Debevic’s, a 50s-style diner that has since permanently closed.

Evidently, the restaurant was hosting a dance-off of some sort. When the hostess called for all those interested in participating, I was the first one to jump out of my seat. According to my mom, I didn’t even ask. I just did it. Every other participant was a drunken twenty-something or fifty-something being egged on by their friends. Not me. I went up there with the confidence only a five-year-old could possess, and I danced first. They told me I “won” after everyone had taken their turn, but I’m sure that was only to boost my ego. At any rate, I had the balls to stand up and dance in front of an absolutely packed restaurant without any prodding or encouragement. I hadn’t ever danced outside of the comfort of my home, and had never taken a formal lesson, but I felt prepared - in the middle of Chicago - to show the world what I could do.

Level of confidence and feelings of embarrassment are frequently correlated. The more confident you feel in your choices, the less likely you are to feel you are acting in a way that validates feeling ashamed. Clearly, at a young age I was borderline overly-confident. But in the years that followed, that confidence would begin to shift. 

In elementary school, I opted to play the role of the quiet, well-behaved student. I wasn’t necessarily a suck-up, but I never had a bad report from a teacher. I had a tendency to blend in. At that point in my life, I had never experienced that red-faced, want-to-vanish-into-thin-air, socially crippling embarrassment, because I could typically be found doing what all of the “good kids” were doing. Those kids didn’t usually behave in a way that warranted conventional embarrassment.

There were definitely a few memorable instances that could have caused this shameful feeling, but I just didn’t really feel that way. For example, in third grade I had to portray a literal toilet during charades at Girl Scout Camp (I did this whole squatting, spinning in circles bit - I totally killed it, to be honest). This could have sent any nine-year-old into a fit, but I simply embraced it and delivered a performance that had my entire troupe laughing with me. I felt self-assured. I knew, along with everyone else, that I had provided some necessary comic relief to a somewhat dull weekend of s’mores and campfire songs.

It wasn’t until middle school that I can remember feeling real embarrassment, on a relatively average day in seventh grade. My social studies teacher, Mr. Crossman, had left us to our own devices to work on a worksheet labeling the capitals of African countries. Like any good middle schooler would, I took the liberty of spending this class time passing notes to my friends. A new student named A.J. had just moved to town. He was quiet, smart, and looked exactly like a Disney Channel star (essentially a Sprouse twin for those of you who liked The Suite Life of Zack and Cody as much as I did). Every awkward pre-teen girl’s dream.

Unsurprisingly, I had a crush on A.J. much like all the girls in my class. I had strategically placed myself in the friend-zone in order to develop a closer relationship with him. Friendship first, right? Rookie mistake. During class, while writing notes to both A.J. and my friend Caroline, I just revealed my crush on A.J. to Caroline when he handed me a note revealing he had started to like our friend Rachel. Somehow, and even to this day it remains a mystery how, A.J. got the wrong note. 

“I have a crush on A.J.?” He read slowly, as if suddenly unsure of his ability to speak English. In seventh grade, this is the kind of moment where you wish you were just a puddle on the floor. All of the blood rushed to my face.

“What? No, I don’t, what? That’s-” I stumbled over my words, feeling restless in my own skin. I looked around, seeing a few other girls in my class whispering and giggling to each other. I could only imagine the judgement those whispers contained. 

A.J. did not reciprocate my feelings and we had an odd couple of days, but eventually this blew over. This moment still seems so notable for me because looking back, it’s the first time I can remember feeling uncomfortable and humiliated. I cared that everyone knew. I cared what people thought about what I was doing or the feelings I was having, and I noticed those girls whispering. My confidence was shot.

More than feeling awkward, I felt ashamed for feeling awkward. I didn’t understand why I felt so guilty: I’m allowed to have feelings. It is perfectly acceptable for me to have liked this boy, and he did not have to like me back. But I couldn’t seem to convince myself of this. A nasty feeling engulfed my once-positive and self-reliant thoughts and I found myself shrinking to a different place. A place where I sensed judgement at every turn and gave into that judgement. 

These feelings continued as I settled into a new version of myself. I became friends with the “popular” girls. They liked my sense of humor and I grew comfortable simply following them around, which again, they liked. I became the sidekick to the most popular girl in my grade because it was easy. Her name was Ali and she lived in a luxurious mansion on a main road in my hometown. By eighth grade, I was the Khloe to her Kim Kardashian. Popular by default. The one everyone liked but remained the lesser version of the star. 

Being a sidekick is not easy and certainly not as rewarding. I was constantly being compared to Ali in everything that I did. Specifically, in eighth grade Ali and I both tried out for our middle school’s basketball team. We both went to a basketball day camp that summer so we were so excited to show off our new skills - bounce passes can be extremely difficult for those of us without hand-eye coordination. We were both so proud when we made it through the first round of cuts and I really caught my stride on day two. I was hitting all my best moves and I didn’t even have to look at the ball while dribbling. 

When we got our letters at the end of the tryout, I could see on Ali’s face as she opened her envelope that she hadn’t made the team. Her features fell  As I looked down at my letter, still folded, I could see the first word through the paper at the top: “Congratulations!” I made it. Instead of feeling proud, I immediately felt bad.

“Sorry that you didn’t make it, Al, you really deserved it,”  I assured her, resting a hand on her shoulder.

“I know. I made so many more free throws than you,” she continued, reminding me of all my mistakes and pointing out all of her best moments.

Ali lied to all of our friends about not making the team, choosing instead to tell them that she made it and her parents wouldn’t let her play because she was too busy with other activities. I went along with it, as any good sidekick does. But even that wasn’t enough for her. When we got our jerseys, I selected number 22. There were limited options in each size, and 22 was my older brother’s hockey number, so I thought that had potential for some sibling bonding (update: he hated it, it didn’t lead to any bonding). Evidently, this was Ali’s favorite number, and she took this as me rubbing it in her face that I made the team and she didn’t. She proceeded to yell at me for thirty minutes about how I was “nothing without her” and “she made me who I was” and “how dare I do this after everything she did for me.” I, being the now timid person I had become, simply took it. And I took it when she told our friends that I only made the team because she asked the coach if I could please have her spot since she couldn’t play. And I took it when she told me I couldn’t play P-I-G with the boys at recess because then they’d know I was actually good, or even - gasp! Better than her. I took it because I wasn’t confident enough in myself to know that I didn’t have to. I was afraid of what would happen if I stood up for myself. I didn’t want to be embarrassed.

Those two years would prove extremely detrimental to my tenacity. Girls can be really nasty, but I didn’t fully understand what was happening at the time. One minute we were dancing to the latest Rihanna song and the next I was crying because my supposed “best friends” were making up lies and saying terrible things about me. I would hang out with my friends after school, giggling about the latest gossip, only to be blind-sided by a three-way phone call (it was literally real-life Mean Girls). Imagine this:

“Kel! How was your sleepover with Leah?” Ali asked me one Sunday morning.

“We had fun,” I replied, “I got to meet her mom’s new boyfriend, so that was cool.” 

“Wasn’t that kind of weird for you though? I heard he’s kind of strange, and Hallie said she didn’t like him much,” she prodded.

“I guess it was a little weird? I don’t know I was a little uncomfortable at his house since I don’t know him, and he made some weird jokes.” I said, playing into her trap.

“Oh my God, Kelly, I can’t believe you’d say that about my potential new dad,” I heard Leah say in the background. Click. The phone call was over.

By the end of eighth grade, I was done. The drama and constantly feeling second-best had taken a toll on my schoolwork and confidence. My teachers and parents both requested that Ali and I not be in any more classes together, and I agreed. None of my friends knew I was in on this plan, however. I acted just as disappointed as they did when we got our schedules and saw we had zero classes in common. It was, undoubtedly, the right move, but it would be a long road back to regaining my self-confidence after blindly following my peers for so long.

By the time high school came around, after such a difficult experience in middle school, I’d made myself quiet again. It was like returning to that place in elementary school where I simply got by because I was kind and easy-going. I had friends because I didn’t make any kind of scene of myself. I was always so self-aware, careful to make sure I wasn’t doing anything strange. This is pretty common in middle and high school. Blending in is easier. Weirdos don’t get asked to Homecoming. Nerds don’t have friends to hang out with after the Friday night football games. You want to break out in song and dance in the cafeteria? Good luck finding anyone to sit with. This is not High School Musical.

It’s so easy to get lost amongst the many faces of a graduating class. By the time senior year rolled around, all of my friends from dance had already graduated and I found myself relatively friend-less. During my “Contemporary American Issues” class the second week of first semester, our teacher was pestering the class with questions about The Lion King, a movie we were watching to find racist, sexist, or in any way inappropriate content. For some reason, perhaps because it was first hour and I was so sleep-deprived, I raised my hand without even realizing it. I started going off on a tangent about the movie and I got pretty heated.

“There is literally NO way the illustrators intentionally spelled ‘sex’ in the stars. The scene between Nala and Simba was not sexual. No one thinks of that stuff these people are nuts,” I argued against the half of class who were convinced that Disney was trying to fill children’s minds with dirty content.

Before I could even process what was happening, the entire class has busted out in laughter. Everyone was staring at me. “I had no idea she was funny,” I heard the girl behind me, Avery, say to herself. Unbeknownst to myself, I had started to make myself a presence. This kept happening in class. Because of this one moment, I started to understand that I was allowed to be myself and I shouldn’t be afraid or embarrassed to say exactly what I feel. I started sharing my thoughts more as the year progressed, and became very close with Avery in that first hour classroom. We’re still friends to this day. I made friends in other classes and made a name for myself.

By the end of senior year, I was pretty popular, but in the right way. It may have taken me four years, but I finally emerged from my self-consciousness to return, partially, to that girl who won “best dancer” at Ed Debevic’s so many years before. I hadn’t completely lost all sense of shame, but I was working on it.

Still this is something I work to improve on, but I now cling proudly to the fact that I “cannot be embarrassed.” Last week, while in Cancun for spring break, my friends and I were at a local club. While we were waiting outside in the line, they brought out live entertainers to try to convince the stupid Americans that the wait was worth it. At least have fun while you stand outside of this overrated, overpriced club, right? In any case, the half-naked women and men banging drums began scanning the crowd for innocent party-goers to jump in and join the show. Without a second thought I stepped forward. 

My friends began to chant my name. I clapped confidently into line with these strangers. We did the “Wobble” to live music, the “Macarena” in a square, and weaved a conga line throughout the tourists. I laughed the entire time, pointing into the crowd and getting new people to join. I was balls-out, five-year-old Kelly at Ed Debevic’s confident. This was simply another dance competition, 16 years later, and I was definitely winning.

More and more I’ve lost that feeling of self-doubt and gained confidence in my every day actions and choices. A few days ago, for example, my friend Molly and I were walking to a local coffee shop to study using her new headphone splitter so we could both listen to the same song at the same time. We put on a song and started interpretive dancing as we walked down the street. Every fourth step, we’d do a “ball-change” (two faster steps on alternating feet) and continue walking. We nodded our heads to one side and then the other. We snapped and made crazy gestures with our hands, laughing hysterically the whole way. I could not count on two hands the number of weird or judgmental looks we received from strangers. No doubt in my mind that bystanders thought we were on some kind of drug. We didn't care. We were having fun.

Being confident doesn’t have to mean being outrageous. It just means being comfortable acting like who you are no matter what you’re doing or who you’re with. Because life is too short to be embarrassed. When we’re young, we are never embarrassed. We tell our parents things we did or things that we think without realizing the repercussions. We speak our minds without worry. Sometime between this young age and the awkward pre-teen years, we’re conditioned to believe that we should be ashamed for thinking or doing certain things. We follow the crowd and believe that being quiet and doing what everyone else is doing is the “right thing.”

But it’s not. 

I wish we never lost that sense of shamelessness. I wish I hadn’t spent those years being self-conscious, or changing myself to better suit my situation. I wish that I could have had the confidence in seventh grade to get up and dance like I did when I was five, or even now. Embrace what makes you different. It’s a pretty cool thing to never be embarrassed. Life’s pretty fun that way.