Excuse Me

I have never been a really polite person. With my family I never said excuse me for burping and with my partner now I didn’t. Until he said it really bothered him, for him it was a respect thing. And I got really mad, mad that I had to change my behavior, but then I realized why I was really mad.

I was really mad because I had to literally excuse myself for my behavior, something that was totally natural and necessary, because I could explode if I didn’t. Plus when I am really sick and nauseous, burping helps me the most.

Yeah yeah, I know I’m a rude person. I can live with that, but what I couldn’t live with was that people were telling me I had to apologize, excuse myself, for something I felt should have been fine. Historically, belching and bodily functions were more accepted than it is today. Society and history has changed a lot and made it more regulated with manners and eating practices to disallow certain bodily behaviors and expressions. It was about creating a more rigid order about not only what was normal and abnormal, but what was allowed and disallowed. Burping was excluded and deemed rude and inappropriate. But let’s just remember, it wasn’t always that way.

I’m not trying to excuse it, if people feel it is rude, that’s okay, I can respect that. But just the idea behind it irks me and makes my skin crawl.

I never want to feel ashamed or have to apologize for me and what I do or am. I don’t think it’s a particular deal to burp, it doesn’t bother me or when people do it, I don’t think it’s gross, that doesn’t bother me. But being forced to say “excuse me” every day while feeling like I’m going to throw up and literally doing the only thing that made me feel less sick sickened me. It’s not like I burp for fun or try to burp my ABC’s. It sickened me because I don’t think anyone should need to say something like that. I can’t think of a behavior like burping where I feel people should have to say excuse me.

Maybe urinating in public. But let’s be real, they shouldn’t need to say excuse me, they should just be able to find a bathroom. That was a horrible tangent….

Anyway, I dislike being made and needed to verbally excuse myself for something I don’t think there’s anything wrong with.

But let’s also be real, I will still say it. Because I love and respect people who might feel it is disrespectful. Ultimately, while I hate myself doing it, I care about people that I love more. And in public.

Which is pretty sad I guess, because beliefs and principles be damned, societal pressure can get pretty heavy isn’t it? Because if I walked around and burped and what not, how fast do you think I’d be called rude and disrespectful?

(Which is how it has to function, you have to feel like you’ll be an outsiders, disrespected, and taboo if you don’t follow societal conventions….or have really no care for what people think of you, which (sadly) I don’t have)

Stronger people than I would stand up for what they believe in, unapologetic expression.

And I’m not doing it to be rude, and if you can’t stomach that, then just take the abstract notion I’m talking about. Because it’s not just about burping, it’s about feeling like I’ve always lived in a position in life where I need to excuse myself, for being ‘bossy’, for ‘taking control’, for asking questions, for being somewhere I wasn’t supposed to. I have always felt that I’ve needed to apologize because of the gender I occupy and the position in life I occupy.

I want to be unapologetic about who I am.