Coward

As a struggling-to-reform perfectionist, I try pretty hard to be vulnerable and okay with weakness in front of Anju and Ketan, both of whom are well on their way to being full-blown neurotic perfectionists.  This means freely telling them, "I didn't know that," and "I was wrong," and "Whoa, that made me nervous!" I also tell them about all the things I'm scared of, from failing to heights to spiders.

When they both started reading Divergent, we naturally began categorizing each other into factions.  We have had this conversation approximately twenty billion times.

Anju:  You're definitely Amity, Miss Trish.
Me:  Yeah.
Ketan:  And Erudite!
Me:  Yup.
Anju:  But not Dauntless.  You're scared of everything.  Haha, you're such a coward!

So I clench my teeth and nod and admit that, yeah, I'm scared of a lot of things.  I do not, no matter how badly I want to, point out that she is scared of infinitely more things than I am, because I am (barely) above comparing myself to a seven-year-old.  And when Ketan boasts that his nickname would be Three, thereby claiming to be braver than Tobias, I hold my tongue and do not mention how he sometimes cries himself to sleep. 

We went to Six Flags today, and I hate roller coasters, which combine two stupid things: heights and falling.  That lurching feeling in your stomach that makes you think you're going to die?  I am totally fine going throughout my day without intentionally afflicting myself with it.  I want them both to know that it's okay to say no, that no matter how many times they whine at me or tease me, I'm allowed to say no and peer pressure isn't going to change that. 

I mean, I'm like really saintly towards these kids.  They had better look back some day and think, "Wow, Miss Trish actively and lovingly shaped us into confident, self-accepting human beings."  But if they keep needling me about how big of a coward I am, one of these days I'm going to pull a Severus Snape and scream, "DON'T CALL ME COWARD!" before fleeing into the Forbidden Forest.