Life Is Embarrassing

I’ve never watched Sex and The City, but I understand well why it’s so popular. And from the title of this article and the mention of the show, I’m sure you can surmise who I want to talk about. Yes, the Carrie Bradshaw—a woman who wears her heart on her sleeve for pretty much all to see, and who can be mad at her for that? For she represents all of our most human embarrassments—the longing, the overthinking, and the quiet desperation to be loved.

Recently, a friend told me I was such a Carrie. Of course, I had only the vaguest idea of what that meant and still do. All I had to go off of was the various clips I’d seen of Carrie Bradshaw in the most precarious and publicly vulnerable situations humanly possible. And all I could think was: yeah—that makes sense.

Sure, I’m not dropping bibles off balconies during church,  or showing up to someone’s home in various different costumes, or fighting with anyone outside of McDonalds, but there’ve been moments where I feared so much the repercussion of my actions that I’d ended up doing nothing at all. And that, I think, is far worse than embarrassment: to feel everything so deeply and still walk away with nothing to show for it.

This article, unfortunately, isn’t really about Carrie Bradshaw.

There’s a creator on TikTok who walks around the streets of Paris asking people a question almost everyone has heard: Is it better to speak or to die? A query originating from the 16th-century French story collection Heptaméron by Marguerite de Navarre—which was popularized by the film Call Me By Your Name.

I saw the film a few months ago with a friend, and it confirmed for me what my answer to that question would be. The question serves as a meditation on love, fear of rejection, and emotional vulnerability. Elio’s love is unrelenting, but fearful. He is afraid of what may not be there, but chooses to speak because he can’t stand the silence. Though his story ends in a profound heartbreak, Elio does love again.

I would always choose to die.

Though rooted in obvious, certainly obnoxious, pessimism—my answer is not meant to be one of surrender. Instead, it’s born of the desire to survive. After all, the body shrinks from annihilation, and what is more crushing than the embarrassment of rejection?

The irony isn’t lost on me. One dying because one does not want to die is silly, yes. But I say: why challenge the inevitable if only to prove to yourself you’re alive? No, it wouldn’t do for me, simply because my hurt feelings hurt enough unspoken. Instead of pushing that boulder uphill in silence, I would rather let the feeling die inside my heart. Speaking might only let the boulder roll back down and crush me.

But the older I get, the less convinced I am by my own answer.

There is something suspicious about choosing silence in the name of survival. Silence, after all, is rarely neutral. It preserves the self, yes—but it also preserves the fear that made the silence necessary in the first place. And fear, when left unchallenged, grows teeth.

Embarrassment, on the other hand, is curiously honest. It is the body’s way of announcing that something real has happened—that you have wanted something badly enough to risk being seen wanting it. In that sense, embarrassment is almost noble. It is the evidence of a life lived without perfect control.

If you asked Carrie, I’m sure she’d say: it’s better to speak and just never stop.

From what I’ve seen, those who speak die just the same as those who never do. But the difference was never to be found in death, but instead in life.

Life is embarrassing because it calls for you to participate. It asks for you to risk being foolish, sentimental, misunderstood. To feel too much, say too much, care too openly.

My friend, Brooklyn, tells me now that she’s learning there are some things she simply isn’t meant to try for anymore. Why waste words, she says, when people never listen to her anyway? Disappointed by the way in which the world keeps walking past even when you call out for its attention.

I hope she knows that every word she has “wasted” on me I still hold on to. And I’m sure everyone else does too.

People don’t forget. They remember the things you say to them—the advice you give, the concern you show, the truths you risk telling. Even if they get in their own way too often to acknowledge it at the time, the words remain somewhere with them.

That is why the very people my friend talks about eventually come around, repeating back to her the message she once tried to give them.

Those people trust her more now, because they know she cared enough to tell them the truth before they understood it themselves. That is how trust is built. If she had hesitated—if she had held her tongue because she feared the embarrassment of being ignored or contradicted—then that trust might never have formed.

But she didn’t hesitate. She spoke.

And because she spoke, when she gives advice now, there are ears ready to listen.

I’ve seen friendships, relationships, and acquaintances killed by the words shared between two people. I’ve watched mighty fall for sharing too much with the wrong people. But within all of it were just people talking, trying to make sense of themselves and the world around them.

You cannot be embarrassed by the things you never dared to do—but you also cannot be changed by them.

Unlike death, silence actually isn’t permanent—nor is embarrassment.

I think I should take my own advice. There are people I love so madly who haven’t the slightest idea.It’s difficult—so much so that I recoil when I hear Bad Religion by Frank Ocean and bury myself in my thoughts whenever a love song hits too close to home. My silence can no longer be a testament to my love, just like a dream cannot live without its dreamer to chase it. Something must be done.

And though, like Carrie, I’m not very subtle, unless I speak I’ll always yearn. Not because I am not loud about my feelings, but because they are so obviously there—just beneath the surface, threatening to spill out at any moment, begging for acknowledgment. Like Carrie, I should let them. She sends the text. She asks the question. She shows up in the wrong outfit, at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

She is, in other words, embarrassingly alive—perhaps the truest way to be.

And for those who are embarrassed and looking for a way out—live in it. Know that you are braver and more honest than those who look at you and judge. I can’t promise you’ll be rewarded, but I do know you’ll breathe easier without those heavy what-ifs on your shoulders.