Ice Cube once encouraged us to check ourselves. 

Embarrassment. Shame. Humiliation.

All are familiar and frequent guests of mine.

This humiliation I often have invited, purposefully planning out the day and time in which I do or say something that is so comprehensively revealing of the depths of my own ignorance.

This humiliation so powerful, I feel naked in the midst of it.  It happens often at the time when I am so self-absorbed;  I stop to admire my reflection in a puddle, and then…

BAM- I am hit with a trailer-truck-sized dose of reality.

There is nowhere to hide, nothing to be said or done. I can’t jump out of my skin and leave myself. uh, I don’t know her. 

Try as I might, I can’t pull the emotions out of my body and throw them in the trash. I can’t cease the reflection of myself in the rear view mirror from existing.

Changing the radio stations, walking away, putting on my jacket, taking another sip of coffee; nothing detracts from this nakedness, it stays there until it is acknowledged.

Nakedness is blunt, conspicuous, and undeniable.

I would’ve done well to heed the words of Ice Cube the day I was waiting in a Mc Donald’s drive – thru.

As always, I was in a rush to work.

This particular establishment has one of those split drive-thrus that merge into one lane. After I ordered, I found my car awkwardly positioned behind a red pick-up that honestly had no business being in a drive thru, with an elderly gentleman at the wheel.

This truck was causing a huge waste of space in the drive thru, and feeling annoyed, impatient (and like the center of the universe), I muttered, ” Move your ass, old man.”

He finally pulled forward and paid. (Yes!) I was eager to move forward, but then, he seems to be ordering something else! He is reaching and looking down in his truck! (WTF?!) My impatience has found voice “Oh, come oooon!”

He pulls forward. (FINally!)

I get to the window to pay. The cashier cheerfully informs me that the gentleman in front of me has paid for my order.

Speechless. Jaw drops. The cashier is probably thinking that I’ve overreacted to a simple, random act of  kindness, but no. Oh no, little does she know,

I am in my own personal, little, naked hell, and NO, I do NOT LIKE what I see.

And I cannot runaway from the monster that is me. Nothing I did or thought could erase what I had said and reacted towards that man.

I tried to thank him at the next stop light, but he avoided eye-contact. No vindication. I was stuck accepting not only undeserved kindness, but the fact that I acted like a total asshole. I had to live with myself.

As painful as this nakedness was, it was surprisingly helpful to be hit with reality at full force. It was that bitter-sweet taste of grace that I was left with. I got something I didn’t deserve. I got the opposite  of what I deserved. Grace is mind-blowing, and a little bit like hell for those like me: people bent on validation, appreciation and acceptance on merit or accomplishment. Grace doesn’t let me lay claim to any of that- which is both relieving and terrifying.

So, it seems Ice Cube had the right idea. If you check yourself, then you don’t have to go through all those terrifying realizations. But until I learn how to apply this, there will still be plenty of special delivery of my ego being directly handed to me, but hopefully, not hopefully, more shaming grace to go along with it too.