Confidence

I'm a confident girl. I mean, I look in the mirror and like what I see. I am comfortable noticing other beautiful women and will exuberantly point them out to my boyfriend. I graciously accept compliments and very much enjoy giving them in return. Plus, I'm really pretty fun. (I would hang out with me, at least.)

I'm convinced, though, that this self-esteem is due primarily to the fact that over the years I have accumulated more than my fair share of embarrassing moments and have internally built up my confidence level as compensation to avoid permanently curling up in a ball on the floor. I embarrass myself a lot.

Case in point - this past weekend I went to my adorable cousin Jess' wedding and had a fabulous time. Congrats Jessica and Nick! However, I decided to wear a super-cute strapless black dress that won out over all the other super-cute dresses mostly because it was the first one I tried on and it only cost me $25 at Charlotte Russe. It was a flattering little thing and since I hate shopping, I didn't really examine it too closely. It serves me right, then, that I learned this weekend in addition to being cute, it also had a very special zipper that would periodically decide to just unzip itself all the way down my back. Yay! After the zipper split for the 10th time, opening my dress to my waist as I entered the reception, I clutched my dress around my chest in a frantic effort to prevent it from puddling around my feet. Luckily I turned to my left and found a girl who had been a stranger barely an hour before, and said - and this is a direct quote- "Hi Natalie! Can you zip me up, please?" Thankfully my stepmom had brought a sewing kit and took care of the situation so I could dance freely without fretting that I might, in the middle of Aretha Franklin's "Respect", turn the reception into something that ordinarily necessitates $1 bills and a pole.

This was not my first wardrobe incident. When I was 16 I went to a water park. For the occasion, I donned a new pale pink bikini in which I looked quite smokin', if I do say so myself. I went down a few water slides. I frolicked with my friends. I played like a Baywatch Babe in the wave pool. And then I noticed that I was getting quite a bit of attention from both men and women. I made a guy walk into a table. I am not kidding. He walked into a table. Cool, right? I strutted my way through that park thinking, "Oh yeah. You want me. You know it. Uh huh." Then a friend ran up to me and wrapped a towel around me, saying "Meagan. Oh God. Please don't cry!" Turns out my brand new pretty pink bathing suit was entirely see-through. It literally looked as though I was walking around Cameron Run celebrating the joys of public nudity. Swell.

These scenarios are in good company. Over the years I have:

• Fallen down the stairs at my senior Social Work ceremony in front of 200+ classmates and their families
• Almost set my hair on fire with the candle I was holding at the same ceremony because I was staring at a cute boy in my class on whom I had a crush (to my eternal chagrin, this did NOT go unnoticed...)
• Gone wind surfing with my friend Kristin when I was 26 and blatantly flirted with our incredibly hot instructor who ultimately turned out to be 16 years old and still in high school
• Upon watching a preview for Showgirls (yes, yes... the one with Elizabeth Berkley) in college, got excited and tremendously inspired... and proceeded to show off my considerable dancing skills with... the closet door (you will not be surprised to learn that this did involve consumption of some alcohol)
• Lost my snorkel while on a cruise and spent some time searching for it with the help of my friends and three very attractive divers... only to have my dear, sweet pal Christy point out quite loudly and enthusiastically that the snorkel was, in fact, resting gently on top of my boobs
• Introduced a guy with whom I went on a few dates to my friends whereupon he got extremely intoxicated, barked ferociously at the waitress and suggested a provocative group activity to Steve and Garrett, two of my guy friends. Neat, huh?
• Thrown up on a classmate's bare foot in the high school locker room (In my defense, I had the flu)
• Gotten excited over something someone said and wound up inadvertently flipping an entire plate of Chicken Parmesan in my lap on New Years Eve
• Fallen up the stairs at the Boardwalk Resort at Walt Disney World and... later that day... fallen actually into the lap of a young boy on one of the Disney buses (What can I say? Some of those bus drivers are worse than me!)
• Went with some friends to the Food and Wine Festival on my 29th birthday and, after some drinks, decided spontaneously to get a piggy-back ride from my friend Sherri by launching myself at her and slamming us both into the ground

I walk into doors and trip over the sidewalk. When I think I'm really ultra-hot, I'm actually trailing toilet paper behind me or something. I sometimes snort when I laugh. Yep! The list goes on. And on. And on some more.

But I have confidence. And it's a good thing, too, because the next time my skirt splits up the back or I run headlong into a wall (probably tomorrow), I'm gonna need it.