My friend reached into the box, took out two bright-papered tootsie pops. She put one in her desk, and, without saying anything, slipped the other into my desk before passing the box along.
I didn’t want the candy. I hadn’t earned it. It was supposed to be fore the students who had received an A on their homework. I never received A’s--only did my homework about half the time--and I didn’t even really like candy. A horrible sensation materialized heavily in my stomach: I had never stolen anything before. But my friend was really cool and I wasn’t sure whether I was cool or not, so I said nothing.
The plan was to wait until my next Algebra class and discretely return the tootsie pop to its box, but I forgot. Or the teacher was looking. And I forgot again. After two weeks of sitting in the front pocket of my backpack, squishing up against sandwich crumbs, eraser dust, and used Kleenex, the piece of candy had been rendered clearly non-returnable.
The guilt I felt over my misdeed followed me around along with the linty lollypop in my backpack, a talisman of contrition. Every time I saw it, I felt a pang of self-repugnance. I had never before imagined myself perfect--I picked arguments with my little sisters and was a miserable student--but I had always felt some comfort in the knowledge that I was, ultimately, a morally upright individual. But now I had committed a blatant offense against another person, against an authority figure. I had taken what was not rightfully mine. I longed for purification, but feared reproof. I never confessed.
Until now.
This has always been part of who I am: I’m obsessed with doing what's right. I recall hiding in my room one Fourth of July because my parents were breaking a local statute by lighting sparklers in our backyard; if the cops showed up, I wanted it to be clear that I’d had nothing to do with this flagrant violation of the law. As an R.A. in college, I felt deeply incensed when friends would commit minor infractions in my presence and expect me to overlook them (I did overlook them, but I resented it deeply). I never drank alcohol until I was twenty-one.
And yet, I’ve always been a little embarrassed about this aspect of my personality. I pretend to others that I’m naughtier and worldlier than I actually am (an ironic conflict in my all-encompassing impulse to comply with what’s expected of me). I think that my improved self-confidence in recent years and an increasing acceptance of the fact that I’ll never be perfect has helped to alleviate some of the guilt and freed me both to make mistakes and to take responsibility for them. But in many ways, I’ll always be a closet goody two-shoes.
In many ways, I’ll always be carrying that tootsie pop around with me.
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