Hide to lie

I recently thought of a couple of instances from my childhood that seem to be locked in my memory banks; a sure sign they must mean something deep.  The first happened was when I was only about 6 or 7.  I was in my parents bedroom admiring some colorful, tiny beads housed in a glass vial with a cork stopper my sister had bought (why they were laying there I have no idea).  I was told not to touch them, but somehow the temptation was too much for me.  After my mom and sister left, when no one was looking I tip-toed back into the bedroom to study their multicolored brilliance.  I was admiring them with great intensity when to my horror, I broke the vial. Hundreds of tiny beads flew in every direction.  In a panic, I dropped the vial and high-tailed it out of the room, immediately ran upstairs to our bedroom and hid way back in the darkest depths of our little closet.  I stayed there for what felt like hours, hoping beyond hope the discovery would appear as a fluke accident and I would escape punishment and be redeemed.  My hiding perpetrated the lie.  I plead guilty the moment I ran.

The second memory was when I was considerably older... 12 or 13 I think.  I went downstairs when no one was home and proceeded to dig through my older brothers ashtray in search of butts for which I would unabashedly reform and smoke.  I was having a very covert good time until my dad decided to come home early and head downstairs.  I quickly butted out the cigarette and ran to hide in the closet in another room.  I could hide myself, but I couldn't hide the lingering smoke that permeated the basement.  My dad subsequently found me and asked me if I had been smoking.  I lied.  I said no, but I knew I was caught.  I hated disappointing him, yet I did so more by lying than by the act itself. 

Both these memories are very clear in my mind even though some of the details may be a little fuzzy.  They stay with me for one reason: to remind me that by hiding I am in reality, lying.  That understanding weighs heavy and is probably why these incidences stay with me.  Yet the hiding goes on.

We collectively hide in some aspect every day.  Every time one answers the question, " How are you?" with "fine" we are essentially hiding, 'cause do people really want to know what we are actually feeling at that given point, on that specific day?  That your dog died and you had a massive fight with your kid, and that your check bounced again, and your husband gambles and you discovered a lump under your arm, or any myriad of examples?? Probably not. By giving out that kind of information we expose ourselves and therefore color the illusion of normality, of the status quo one aspires to, freely giving up fodder for the gossip mills.  We hide & we lie to protect ourselves from being authentically human.   We fake it to spare ourselves the pain of being 'found out' and therefore less appealing; less worthy of someone's time and interest.  We instinctively want to position ourselves as a person of value, one of the cool kids in our friends playbooks.  Our self esteem demands it.   And I am as guilty, if not more so, as anybody else.   I hide all the time, careful not to show too much; to divulge my secrets too freely.  I lie by saying I'm fine, when I'm not; by putting spin on my life so it looks much more wonderful than it often is.  The irony is that most everyone is doing the same thing, so we really have no idea what is reality and what is fantasy.

I'm a digger.  I like to question... no, I love to question, because it gives people permission to talk, and the more people talk, the more I question, because  as I do, each layer of them gets peeled back a little more and you start to see who they really are.  And then you have the opportunity to reveal bits and pieces of yourself in a safe way.  The more that happens, the freer you become as the weight of all that hiding and lying gets lifted off.  In the end you find out that we all struggle with the same problems in one way or another. 

The hardest thing in life is honesty; firstly with yourself, and then with others.  Still, I believe it is the most noble thing we can do for ourselves. Next time someone asks me how I am, I think I will give pause before I answer and do my best not to hide behind a rote answer.  I will work to be honest if for no other reason than to not have to carry around the weight of camouflage.

My hope is in doing this, you will still like what you see.