The old guy at the beach

Let me tell you a story that my dad told me when I was a kid. So, my dad lived on the seaside when he was a kid and he loved to swim at the beach all the time. He went with his friends, he went with my uncle and his parents. Tourists would come there to marvel at the rolling waves, the marvelous stretch of sand along the coastline that crunched under their feet like brown sugar when it was soggy and the sunsets that bled red, purple and pink every good evening.
Now for the real story. There was a man who did something that would change everyone’s view of self-awareness forever. No one knew who this guy was. Was he a tourist perhaps, or a local? It was a big city, so finding one specific old guy was like finding a needle in a haystack.
If there was one thing that everyone knew about this guy, it was that what people even thought of him never even crossed his mind. So, with this impeccable amount of indifference, he did the unthinkable at the beach.

He looked over at the roaring waves and thought, “Quite a day for a swim, eh? Let me just change into my swimsuit right here.”

So, he took off everything, right there for everyone to see, fat wrinkly butt cheeks and all. Teen girls and young ladies took off running and screaming. Parents cautioned their kids to look away ASAP. Teenage boys pointed and laughed at what they thought to be a lack of self-awareness, pure insanity, or sheer stupidity.
Indifferent as ever, the ancient man got into his swimsuit and ran right into the water like nothing ever happened.

But, if this is an event my dad witnessed, why is the story written from my point of view? Well fast forward thirty to maybe forty years from now, and I came home with a frown on my face. It was perhaps in my first few weeks into high school.

“Why aren’t you happy?” asked Dad.
“I’m still thinking of the party on Friday we had at my school.”
“Why? Did something happen?”
“I did karaoke to a song I didn’t know with Paulina and so I improvised. I’m pretty sure people didn’t like it. After that I hid in the bathroom and panicked for some time.”
So, to make me feel better, Dad told me the story that I just mentioned.

“So, the point is, people do a lot of weird things, and it just doesn’t matter all that much in six minutes, or even tomorrow. I don’t even know how long ago that was, but for all I care, it doesn’t haunt me when I go to bed.”

I thought of those words for some time. When I went to school the next day, no one said anything about my performance at the karaoke party. No one judged the way I ran to the bathroom just like that.

So, I spent the rest of my days in high school doing as I pleased. I did everything I did just for me, and if anyone didn’t like it, well, that’s their problem