Memory #10

I think I entered a new stage in the process of maturity around the time I was ten. It was the winter after fifth grade, and I was at Crystal's house.

Her brothers and... some adult (her family were a little too complicated for my understanding)... were watching Beavis and Butthead on TV. I wasn't interested in the show. I really wasn't.

I felt a little self-righteous about it.

I knew it was rotten for me to feel that way at all. Imagine that a man, standing on the back end of the Titanic, looked down at all those poor, waterborne souls with pity. Imagine he felt another lurch beneath his feet, and imagine it drew his attention elsewhere.

It's the first time in memory that I was tempted to judge, and it's the first time I took responsibility for changing the way I was thinking.