The International Writers Magazine: This is me - deal with it

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Just Me • Keren Arnold “Shit that is so embarrassing!” It was Friday night, the last night of the school play, and I had just gone on stage, in front of 300 people, with my dress undone at the back, my bra showing and my knickers hanging out. My friend was attempting to console me; “It wasn’t that bad. I didn’t even notice.”

“Yes you did Lucy, you pissed yourself and mouthed at all the stage crew to look.” Lucy laughed, then stopped when she saw my face.
“Sorry.”
“Yeah well, I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life.”
“Oh come on,” she said, I sensed it was before she could stop herself.
“What’s that supposed to mean,” I asked her.
“Well, Keren, this is you we’re talking about. Haven’t you got used to it by now?”
“To what?!” My eyes round and incredulous.
She paused, “Well, to being a bit of an…oaf.”
I stared at her, somewhere between laughter and tears. What on earth did she mean? I may not be the most co-ordinated person in the world, maybe I tended to blurt out the wrong thing at an appallingly wrong time, but still, an oaf? Is that what everyone thought of me?

I grumbled all the way home. I saw my boyfriend of the time the next day, and was barely in the door, before I accosted him, “Do you think I’m an oaf?” He blinked, then replied, “ Well you do fall over a lot.”
I seethed and marched past him struggling with my umbrella, somehow, in my deluded fantasy world, I had imagined that my blundering antics were endearing and cute. I began to sink into the depths of self-loathing as I flopped on the sofa. I think he sensed I was being serious.

“Listen,” he said sitting next to me. “There’s something I really hate about you.”
Uh Oh, Well done Keren I had finally proved that I was a complete fruitcake, in no way girlfriend material. I waited for the verdict. “The way you always put yourself down.”

A pause. Not what I was expecting to hear. “And do you know some of the things I like the most about you?” He continued. “No,” I mumbled sulkily from behind a sofa cushion. “The fact that you walk into walls when you wave at someone you know on the other side of the street. The way that you get stupidly enthusiastic about things, and sing at the top of your voice in public places and break anything I ever buy you. And when you told my Dad that your Dad’s bald too.” As he smiled at me I saw that maybe I didn’t have to change, that people could like my clumsy ways for what they ultimately were, a part of me. And remembering how, on that Friday night many laughing technicians and cast members came up to me, to slap me on the back, and congratulate me on making an arse out of myself, sending me off into fits of laughter, I realised that I wouldn’t have it any other way. Until the next time someone called me an oaf.
© Keren Arnold December 2004

Keren is studying Creative Writing at Portsmouth University

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