My name is Joe Bush, and I turned 21 years old today.
All my life I have struggled with self-shame and self-doubt. I’ve struggled to be honest with people. I’ve struggled to be honest with myself. If I can’t be honest with myself, how can I be real with you? I have been lying to this readership for long enough. I’ve tried to become on this page exactly what you’d get from me if you talked to me in person. I feel like you deserve to know everything about me that you deserve to know. I feel like you don’t deserve to sit in waiting about this.

So, yes, it’s time to come clean. It’s time to be honest. It’s time for me to stop lying to you, and to stop lying to me. It’s time for you to know:

I do not know what the difference between oatmeal and porridge is

I have eaten oatmeal for my whole life. I have heard about porridge for my whole life. However, I don’t know what the difference is. I was shopping for Oatmeal the other day, and I saw a box of “Steel-Cut” Oatmeal for sale, I don’t know exactly what that means either, but I don’t think that’s “porridge.” My theories right now about what Porridge is are these:

1. The same thing as Oatmeal but just referred that way on like the East Coast or in Canada or something. Like how people from Boston refer to Ice Cream Sprinkles as “Jimmies” or how people in Minnesota call our “Duck, Duck, Goose” “Duck, Duck, Grey Duck”. I bet if I go to Portland, Maine, I’ll find some porridge and if I ask for oatmeal they’ll throw me out of the joint or make me ring a bell that says “dumb Midwesterner”
2. It’s just Oatmeal with milk in it. If that is the case, I’ve eaten Porridge my entire life and not oatmeal. I can’t eat that knowing it’s mostly water-based.
3. Porridge and Oatmeal aren’t the same thing at all. It’s possible that porridge is just, like, corn-based or something but not actually oats.
4. It’s a specific type of oatmeal. It’s very possible, like the “Steel-Cut Oatmeal” from earlier, that Porridge is just a different form of oatmeal production. If that were the case, though, why don’t I see boxes of porridge on the shelf at the store?
5. It was created for the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. I don’t know that I’ve heard of porridge anywhere outside of the three bears’ breakfast table. It’s very possible that every mention of the substance is a reference to the original story

Whatever the case may be, it feels good to get that off of my chest. I can eat oatmeal in peace again. I hope 21 is a year full of honesty like this and that I can continue to create the best website-based writing that I possibly can.