Death by Embarrassment

So, something strange happened to me this weekend. I'm not even kidding. Something REALLY freaking strange happened to me, and it's making me quite ill at ease.

This past weekend I found out that I am a sleepwalker.

Never, in my whole life, had I ever done this before. Never. But, I had had some experiences with my little sister as a kid where she had been sleepwalking - and, I'm not going to lie, it freaked me out every single time it happened. I have always been completely uncomfortable with the entire concept. I mean, walking around with a glassy-eyed stare in the dark, "creeping quietly through the house" (as one online journal put it) is a thought that has always thrown chills down my back. So, discovering that I actually do this was a big blow to me.

And the circumstances surrounding this epiphany made it even worse. I mean, they were bad.

It was totally embarrassing.

Before I tell you how it happened, I first want to share something about myself: I HATE to be embarrassed. To me, it feels like dying. I feel like I'm suffocating from it, and my immediate reaction is always to cry and to hide. I have a very strong reaction, and the situation is made none the better due to the fact that I am also very easily embarrassed. As I've grown older, I have tried to remedy these natural reactions of mine and have come up with a few successful safeguards:

1. I try to tell myself that it is nothing. No big deal. It will not be remembered for long, and the other people who witness this probably don't think much of it anyhow. I try to let it go.

2. I take deep breaths and try to smile and make a joke. For smaller embarrassments, this normally works. I have gotten much better at swallowing the emotions and making light of it.

3. I do everything in my power to avoid it.

Most of the time I am successful with these. I try to be very aware of myself, and I definitely put forth a daily effort to live as embarrassment-free as possible. Of course, sometimes you just can't help it, but other times I have been able to identify a possible embarrassing moment and sidestep it. This pleases me to no end.

Naturally, the double-whammy of this weekend was not only the knowledge that I'm a freaky sleepwalker, but that in this state (where I have no control) I embarrassed myself. I hate knowing that I can't be the master of my actions while sleepwalking. That fact is even more scary than the whole walking around in the dark thing. The whole scenario leaves me helpless to it - especially when I had put no safeguards in place for being embarrassed while sleeping.

And, man oh man. This was a doozy of an embarrassing moment.

My little sister had brought her new boyfriend to our house for the weekend (already you should be able to see that this is going nowhere good, and fast). He is a really nice guy, and Husband and I were both impressed and very glad to meet him. They stayed in our guest room both Friday and Saturday nights.

Sunday morning, I was up making waffles when they came downstairs. I asked the usual, cheerful morning questions and as I looked up for a response I could tell they were smirking about something - something that made them both uncomfortable. The new bf said, "Well, something weird happened to us last night." Just with the way he was looking at me, I knew that I had done something. Automatically my throat clenched up, my stomach dropped, and fear clutched my heart.

"Last night at 2:30 AM, you climbed into bed with us."

WHAT!?!?!?!?

Me: "No way. NO WAY! I couldn't have, I was asleep."

New BF: "Exactly. You were sleepwalking."

Little sister breaks into laughter at this point.

Me: "Husband! HUSBAND!? Where are you!?"

He finally comes into the room

Me: "Did you know that I'm a sleepwalker?"

Husband: "No. You are?"

Me: "Apparently so. And I climbed into bed with them last night."

Husband: "What!? That's crazy. I had no idea."

The scene continued with a few more, "I can't believe it"s, but it was all just an echo in my head. I could feel it happening. I was falling into it. I just kept repeating, "I'm really sorry. I'm so embarrassed." over and over and over until I felt the stinging tears at the back of my eyes. I poured another waffle into the waffle-maker, asked Husband to please check it in a few minutes, and avoided all eye contact as I tried to discreetly slip upstairs.

I came completely unglued. My head was a tangle of horrible thoughts. He said I crawled into bed, but what else did I do? Oh GOD, I wasn't wearing pajama bottoms, they both saw my underwear! Oh God, I hope I didn't do anything else. Please God, tell me I didn't do anything else.

Husband came up to check on me, which only made things worse. He meant well, of course, but I was completely horrified with myself. All that hard work, all those days of trying not to embarrass myself, trying to avoid my greatest fear were all for nothing. Turns out, I'm so determined to make a fool of myself that I'll do it in my sleep. They were getting ready to leave, so I hopped in the shower like a coward and waited until they had gone before I ventured out.

Husband had talked to the new bf and he had reiterated that I merely walked into the room, laid down for 10 seconds or so, got back up and promptly walked out. Still, it consumed me all day. I just couldn't stop feeling helpless about it, and of course, totally humiliated that I'd done it, and to top if all off, I felt foolish for being such a baby about it. I was trying to make a good impression on the new bf, and I had succeeded only in showing him my underwear after crawling into bed with him and then crying so much about it that I couldn't compose myself enough to say goodbye in person.

Brilliant. Good work.

Anyway, I am still embarrassed, but I'm starting to get over it. And the sleepwalking thing sort of makes sense from what I've read online, and it definitely explains a couple of past weird moments. Like the time that Husband woke up in the middle of the night and our humidifier was off and the door was open. We always make sure that the opposite is true when we go to bed, and since I had come up second, I chalked it up to forgetfulness and moved on. But, it gnawed at me all day that I was pretty sure I had successfully done both those things. It was only after the humiliation of Sunday that it dawned on me that I must have shut the humdifier off on my way out of our bedroom while sleepwalking. Yuck. I hate this.

At the very least I guess I can maybe use it for an excuse or two down the line.... Like

Husband: "Honey? Why didn't you remember my birthday?"

Me: "What!? I did! I swear! I bought your present and everything... oh, I must have returned it while I was sleepwalking... sorry honey, I just can't help it! "

See? I'm getting better already - jokes and everything.

And from now on out, I wear pajama bottoms to bed and tell all guests to lock their doors - apparently, there's a sleepwalking perv roaming the halls of my house at night....

God, I'm embarrassed.