As Forest Gump puts it “It’s happens”, “Shit”, bad things happen to people unexpectedly. But how often does something very, very embarrassing happens to you? One time is more than enough as far as I’m concerned and it once happened to me. That was probably the worst day of my life, and it happened while I was a teen.

It happened about 17 years ago, I was about 15 years old. At the time I was living in Puerto Rico in a small town where everyone knew each other and it only took 5 minutes to go from one side of the town to the other on a bike. I was a very shy kid who would panic when every a cute girl got near me and I would avoid any problems with bullies for fear of getting beat up. I guess some would consider me pathetic, I can’t really find any other way to describe it to be honest.

Then one day, during a festival in my town I saw this girl that stole my heart. Cutest thing I ever saw but because I was shy, I never did approach her at the festival. Then one day I was riding my bike around town, just a few weeks before school, started and I saw her. She was walking down the street and when I saw what she had in her hands I got very excited (in a child like kinda way, please). She had a school uniform for the middle school next to me. I had just graduated and was going to High School which was next door and could not believe I might get a chance to see her again. Odds were she was not from my town so I never thought I would see her again. It get’s better, turns out she lived on the other side of my school and had to walk thru my school right past my class room every morning to get to her school. Every so often, I manage to put my shyness aside and I manage to talk to some girls and so far every time has worked (yet I still could not do it all the time). I began talking to her and we started dating. I would visit her at her school and spend time there. It felt cool that she was going out with a high school guy.

But then one day, bad luck struck and I found myself in the most embarrassing position a guy like me could ever be. I was at her school during lunch time spending time with her and when the time came to leave I walked towards the gate when all of a sudden I was surrounded by some of the school (and town) bullies. The youngest one, about13 years old, got in front of me and accused me of badmouthing him and pushed me to the ground in front of all the middle school kind, many who I knew. I laid there on my butt staring at them for a few second as they looked at me and say “come one, what? You gonna do something about it?”. I got up and walked away, towards the small cafeteria around the corner, sat down at a table and began to cry. The embarrassment was too much to take.

By the time I finished that school year, I was ready to jump on a plane and move back to the US and so I did. At 16 I ended up in Miami living with my brother. That day was the beginning of what would be so dramatic changes in my life. No more did I allow people to push me around, abuse me or scare me. From there on, I decided to defend myself even if it cost me a black eye. To this date, I kinda wish I wouldn’t have let it go too far. Now a days I tend to lose control when pushed too far and I become a monster that I don’t like. But I’m learning to deal with it now.

So, the point of my story was to tell about a very embarrassing moment of my life, a life changing one at that. What about you JUers out there? Got an extremely embarrassing story you might be willing to share? Please do so. Make me feel I’m not the only one in the world who’s been thru something like this. LOL.