As someone who has messed up in profoundly absurd and highly public ways, there is a mountain of evidence that I am indeed a flawed human.

One example that haunts me to this day happened at a water park with my kids and nieces about a decade ago. I was left with the four eldest children while my husband and sister took our toddlers home to nap. “The Olders” as we called them, insisted on waiting in one more hour-long line to go down the fastest slide, and begged me to watch from the pool at the bottom. Naturally I got bored after 10 minutes sitting in a crowded, murky giant-sized hot tub with a zillion other parents. I decided to practice my back stroke. The first time I accidentally grazed the shoulder of a man sitting on the edge with his wife should have been the end of swimming backward in an enclosed space.

Unfortunately, I got bored again after apologizing. I again windmilled my arms behind my body while floating toward the side of the pool. This time when I went to grab the edge I missed and ended up with a soft mound of flesh in my hand as it dawned on me that I had just sexually harassed a stranger in front of his spouse. 

I leaped out of the pool sputtering a profuse apology and ran to our table where I hid under a towel for at least 20 minutes before my niece Abby showed up and poked at me. “Aunt Liz, why aren’t you in the pool watching us?!” To which I scream whispered, “GO GET YOUR COUSINS AND TELL THEM WE HAVE TO LEAVE RIGHT NOW.” 

She ran back up to the top of the tower and delivered the news to Jack who refused to leave since he was next in line. “Your mom accidentally touched a man’s privates, and we have to go right now so she doesn't get arrested!” This day lives on infamously. When it comes to my mind it only takes about a nanosecond before I slide into simultaneous self-disgust and awe that I didn’t control my impulses better or apply any kind of reasoning to the potential consequences of my actions. 

This was years before my ADHD diagnosis which was the equivalent of a flashlight to the map [or which was the equivalent of a flashlight that illuminated the map] of my previously mystifying brain. Even telling this story for the first time outside of a very small circle threatens to send me back to the shame I felt the rest of that day, and for a long time afterwards. Recently, my daughter Millie said something that made me feel seen and understood and made the impulses I often follow into embarrassment more understandable. 

She said, “Mom, it’s like everyone has a stream of consciousness running in their minds. But you and I have a creek, and sometimes that creek is a river and we are just following the current wherever it leads. Indeed. That day it led me to a hot tub filled with regret!!"