Do you ever find yourself on an indulgent Sunday morning lazily sipping your coffee, your warm fingers delicately wrapped around your favorite mug?
You're feeling all cozy and delicious inside, and you think to yourself, "Oh my goodness, life is really not that bad!" You've been granted this slender moment of beautiful blissfulness... until BAM.
The sparkly, soft lights in your brain slowly fade to black.
The only light in the darkness is an intrusive flash of that horribly embarrassing moment you had last Friday, when you forgot to eat dinner, went to the bar right after work, took tequila shots on an empty stomach and vomited on the bar.
And of course, that mega bitch from high school — the one who used to turn her nose up at you in the school hallways and made your life a living hell — just happened to be there.
You have this vision of her in a really basic Canada Goose puff coat (that you secretly want but can't afford) laughing at you as you were escorted out by two bouncers.
And the spiral begins.
"I'm so stupid. Why did I drink on an empty stomach? I'm 25 years old. I know better. When will I ever learn? I'll never learn because I'm so DUMB.
It's pointless to even pretend like I have a shot at success because all I do is repeat the same mistakes over again. I bet that whore from high school thinks I'm such a loser, and she's totally right.
I'm a loser who has no class. I can never go back to that bar again, and that really sucks because it was my favorite bar. In fact, I'm never going to the East Village again because everyone will remember me as the trashy loser who vomited on the bar.
I'll never find love. I'll never find success. I just want to dig a deep hole in the earth, crawl into it and never come out again. I bet no one would miss me either. That's the sad truth."
And it gets worse. Suddenly, you start remembering every other embarrassing thing that ever happened to you. You remember the time you fell asleep during a hookup because you were drunk and exhausted, and that stupid hookup told everyone.
You remember the time you cried black-mascara tears in public at a really cool party, and these string-bean, model girls with bleached eyebrows and endlessly long legs laughed at you.
You remember the time you confessed to your best friend that you wanted to be more than just friends, and your best friend said she didn't feel the same way, and you felt so rejected, ugly and worthless.
Honey, I know how the shame spiral works all too well. I've embarrassed myself so many times in my life, it's pretty remarkable. I threw up on a dick mid-blow job when I was a stoned, closeted lesbian at 18.
I accidentally took a Xanax thinking it was an Advil before the biggest audition of my life and screwed up the whole thing because I couldn't remember my lines (because I had taken a prescription tranquilizer thinking it was an over-the-counter painkiller).
Just this past summer at a chic beach club in the south of France, I dragged an entire toilet paper roll out of the bathroom and onto the sundeck. The toilet paper was stuck in the top of my bikini.
But I don't spiral like that anymore, and neither should you. All of these colorful mistakes, embarrassing moments and regretful confessions only make us more interesting, multifaceted human beings with interesting stories to tell.
All of these colorful mistakes, embarrassing moments and regretful confessions only make us interesting.
A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with my gorgeous cousin, and we were drinking white wine and eating amazing stone crabs.
I started talking about how embarrassed I was about getting a period stain on a pair of white jeans, and she told me a really embarrassing story about a time she shit her pants. She said, in that moment, she vowed never to be embarrassed about anything else again.
And that's when I had the greatest epiphany of the past decade: There is never a real reason to be ashamed about anything. If my stunning aunt can literally shit herself (at a business meeting, nonetheless) and live to tell the tale, we can all survive anything.
And I took a really good look at her and realized every fascinating woman I've ever met has so many embarrassing stories under their belt.
See, when you embarrass yourself, you become so much sexier and more beautiful. Beauty and sexuality are nuanced. They aren't just about being "pretty" or having long eyelashes that skim the surface of your brow bone.
Beauty and sexuality are about having garnered life experience. They're about being a woman with a past.
Beauty is about taking a risk and pouring your heart out to a stranger and then getting escorted out of the bar because you're yelling too loudly about politics.
They say the beauty is in the details, but I say the beauty is in the screw-ups. The sexiness lives in the mistakes.
Those girls who've never let out one of those awkward, loud laughs, the girls who have never hooked up with the wrong person for the wrong reasons and the girls who have never left a period stain in the back of a taxi are boring.
They're just pretty girls. And pretty isn't the goal because it's simple. It doesn't force you to think deeply about anything. It doesn't challenge you.
Beauty should be the ultimate goal, and you don't get to be beautiful if you're caught up in being pretty. Beauty is wildly complex. It makes you feel things. It's sexy. It reminds you of dark memories. And it reminds you of the biggest, most amazing feelings you've ever felt.
They say the beauty is in the details, but I say the beauty is in the screw-ups.
And you can't be beautiful without being sexy. You can't be sexy without having led a full life of highs and lows. You don't get to experience the massive highs without having experienced the darkest lows.
So when you're in the middle of your next shame spiral this Saturday morning, and you're thinking, "Oh shit! Why did I do that? Why do I say such stupid things? Why am I always confessing my love to these stupid idiots? Why did I forget to change my tampon?" I want you to stop.
I want you take a deep breath and think of the woman you want to be.
You and I are kindred spirits, and I know you want to be a woman with a story — a beautiful human being with a beautiful, but scarred past.
And if you still can't get out of the shame spiral, close your precious eyes and imagine me, your lesbian big sis, sitting across the kitchen table from you.
I'm drinking a hot cup of tea in a vintage-looking, porcelain cup. I'm staring at you, my big eyelids painted black. My mascara is smudged and smoky, resting in the bags under my eyes.
You're impressed with how well I'm pulling it off, though. My raven hair is hanging stick-straight and lifeless.
I'm wearing a very inappropriate sequined dress. There's a tear in my black tights, my platform boot is scuffed and I smell like cigarette smoke and vodka mixed with Tom Ford perfume.
It's clear I had a rough night last night, and you can probably tell I got kicked out of a few bars for telling a few fuckboys to go fuck themselves a little too aggressively. Drag queen glitter is shimmering in my hair, and I look deranged.
But I've never been more beautiful than in that moment, because I'm layered. I'm a sexy woman owning my mistakes.
"Strong women own their mistakes, and strength is beauty and sexy AF, so stop spiraling, babe," I tell you, reading your mind.
And suddenly, you not only feel beautiful, but outrageously beautiful — like the most beautiful woman on the planet. And in this moment, you are.
Strong women own their mistakes, and strength is beauty and sexy AF.
So, sweet kittens everywhere, when the shame of last night, last weekend or last year tries to take you down, let it empower you from the inside out, instead.
Let the interesting mistakes you've made light up your insides so fiercely that it shines out of your pores and leaves the rest of us intrigued, unable to look away from you, wondering, "What's her story?"
Message me and tell me, in detail, about all of the embarrassing things you've done in your life.
We'll laugh about it over Facebook Messenger, and I'll share some gems with you, too. That way, we'll just be really sexy, interesting, beautiful women with boundlessly glorious pasts together.
