Some Much Needed Honesty

I used to lie a lot as a kid. Not about big things. In fact, I was more honest with my parents than most of my friends. My parents knew where I was and what I was doing. I told them about parties and nights I had gotten drunk and drugs I had tried. I told them about my experiences, and they sat back, calmly and patiently listening to my life discoveries, offering their advice without making set definitions of what was right and what was wrong. They let me define that for myself. They let me tell them things they didn't necessarily want to hear, because they valued my honesty, because they wanted our relationships to be built on trust.

So did I, and so I told them the big things. But when asked if I had started my homework, or remembered to fill up the car with gas, or finished off the ice cream in the freezer, I would lie. I would do it without thinking. I would deny things. I would get caught (I was never a very GOOD liar). I would hate myself for instinctually jumping to dishonesty when I had been offered nothing but compassionate understanding. I had no reason to lie. I wondered why I was so quick to do so.

In the middle of a fight, my little brother once screamed "why do you have to act like you're so superior to everyone?!?" I told him, quite indignantly, that I never acted that way. How could I? How could a person who spent the vast majority of their time hating themselves walk around with an air of superiority? How could a person with no self confidence act like they were better than someone, anyone? It made no sense.

I looked to my mother to defend me. She cocked her head to one side and smiled slightly in that compassionate, understanding way I had seen so many times before. "Of course you do, Frankie," she said. "You have such a need to appear perfect."

I was struck. Not by her agreement with my brother, but by how true it suddenly rang inside my head. I do that. I'm like that. It is why I never learned to ask for help, why I never shared pieces of myself I was ashamed of, why I was so quick to lie about those tiny insignificant details that would somehow translate into failures, into faults. Slowly I am learning how to embrace the shadows as well as the light, but for a long time, I didn't know how to even address the subject. For a long time I couldn't bear the thought of my imperfection.

I am writing this because during nap time today it occurred to me that most of what I write here is very one dimensional. It is not that I hide things, not even that I lie, but that I tend to write when I am in a good mood, or want a good mood. I tend to write more as the person that I want to be than as the person I more often am. Yes, I am happy. Yes, I am bright and smiley and learning the depths of joyfulness all around me. Yes, I love this life and this world with more fervor than I will ever be able to articulate. But there are also things I hate. There are things I am less willing to offer up to the public eye. There are things I'd rather not say. I am writing this because I thought, perhaps, it is time to say some of it.

Sometimes I can be a real bitch. I gossip a lot. When I'm angry I vent and vent and vent to people instead of addressing the problem head on. This also makes me a two-faced coward. I scream at my students sometimes, out of anger and frustration with them, out of anger and frustration with things that have nothing to do with them. I've done it with friends as well. I direct things at the wrong people.

I have made bad decisions about alcohol and drugs and sex. I have gotten into cars I knew not to get into. I have gotten into situations I knew not to get into. I have taken things out on my body through food, through the deprivation of food, through unnecessary pain. I have taken things out on myself through guilt and worry and my need to over analyze. I have run away from people and from the possibility of love and from love itself. I have hated myself more often than I've loved me. I regret that daily.

I close myself off quickly to people I know I don't want to be friends with, people who remind me of others I got stuck with in the past from showing them too much kindness. I associate new people I meet with people I already know, place them into categories, forget the beauty and possibility of individuality. I pull away from people who I know are leaving. I hide from people who are already gone. I can be hypocritical. I can act completely superior. I can pretend to be much smarter than I am.

Sometimes I think people are stupid. REALLY stupid. Not just because I disagree with their politics or lifestyle or opinions, but because they can't even hold up their end of the conversation. Sometimes when I'm talking to them I'm only half listening while my brain sings "you're stupid!" over and over again. Sometimes it makes me feel really smart to be around such stupid people.

Sometimes I feel best about my life when other people are at their worst. Their anger and frustration makes me want to be happy, makes me want to prove that I am capable of what they cannot do at the moment, makes me want to shout with gladness that I have nothing to be angry or frustrated about. Sometimes I feel the worst about my life when other people are at their best. When she could repair a relationship I could not, I could only be half happy for her because the other half was so consumed with jealousy and want and the knowledge that she had succeeded where I had failed. She could make something of her life that I could not. Sometimes I want what I can't have.

I speak volumes about love, but I also hate. I have never hated any one person, but there are people and concepts and truths that I hate. I hate people who have children even though they don't want them or have time for them. I hate that there are people in this world who want children but can't have them, despite their every effort and good intention and boundless wells of love that they have to offer. I hate the idea of pro-life and I hate the term pro-life. I am not against life. I am for choice. You are not for life. You are against the freedom of choice. I hate that you can't see that distinction.

I hate that while we live in this country that promises freedom, there are still so many ways in which we are not free. I hate that we still have more freedom than almost any other country. I hate that I have this beautiful life because I was born into the right circumstances, because it means that there are people living miserable lives simply because they were born into the wrong ones. I hate that so much of our existence is based on money. I hate that I don't try harder, fight harder, to fix things. I hate that there are so many wasted voices. I hate that there are people in this world still ignorant enough to hate their fellow man based on insignificant details like race and religion and sexual orientation. I hate that in this day and age people can be stupid enough to draw such imaginary lines. I hate to think that we will always be at war. I hate that there is so much hate.

Perhaps all of this makes me awful. Perhaps these are pieces of myself best left unsaid, hidden away, lied about. I suppose I never told you this because I was afraid of my imperfection. But I think I feel as though it is more important to be honest than perfect, because my parents wanted me to have relationships built on trust, and because I want that to be our foundation too.