A Question of Honesty

Honesty.

I remember a lesson in grade school about honesty.

“Should you always tell the truth?”

We all answered obediently, variations of “Oh yes” with different levels of emphatically droned choreography.

Then the teacher challenged us with “What if the truth will hurt someone? Is it okay to lie?”

Our growing brains were suddenly stacked with new truths, lying on top of the old ones, layering our psyches with concepts and shades of grey we hadn’t the resources to consider before.

Ahhhhhhhh.

Some people take this concept of truth beyond reason.

My aunt, who gossips beyond gossip…. If you call her on it, she will say defensively... “I am only telling the truth.”

My mother would tell her truths to anyone.
Grocery clerks everywhere, with a spare set of ears, and an (obvious to anyone but her) feigned interest, would listen as she told them intimate details of her bills, operation, children, stance on tomatoes… unreal, the amount of details she’d get into in the small time it took (which she always made longer) to exchange goods for funds on a conveyor belt. It was embarrassing yet prideful. No one can out-talk her… no one is sweeter in nature, either, so you tolerate her truths, knowing they belong to her like a mewling kitten’s coat. And it is just as threatening.

There are those armchair psychologists who diagnose you based on their truths, based upon something they read last week in Chatelaine. No matter how much your own story differs from the one they’d heard… Oh, they know. They simply know. “It’s like this,” “Let me tell you,” they’ll say.

Okay.

So my truths shift. They change. I consider honesty an inherent trait in everyone, which makes me naïve. I’m cool with that. I’d rather be hopeful as I go through my every day than jaded in new situations. I’d never learn everything if I thought I knew it all.

Being honest doesn’t mean full disclosure. Some things are mysteries for a reason. If everyone intimate in my life knew the swings between angst, pity, love, hate I ply myself with during each moment of my unfolding life, they probably wouldn’t be my loved ones. Run screaming for the hills, they would.

As I revisit this piece, with my fuzzy headed baby-child on my lap, I realize more potently than I had before, the meaning of honesty.

Honesty doesn’t mean you are chained to your ideologies or the karma police will wrap your wrists in leather and flail you with your missed opportunities forever and ever so help you Dgog….
It is an inner knowing. It must sit well in your solar plexus and between your own teeth. If you are chewing on your honesty long after you should’ve digested it, then perhaps you need to re-consider your truths and let them evolve. And by the power of Greyskull, please forgive yourself your old truths! You grow for a reason, you know! Just accept it and move on.
Do a dance on that skin you shed so long ago, those mistakes were a part of you that evolved beyond the margins that were, and you can look at it with a stoic peace, knowing they led you to this state, this truth, this moment.

The other day, my daughter noticed the deep and angry arm welts of a ‘cutter’… it was obvious to my husband and me and our jaded brains, and something that isn’t really explainable in polite (or loud seven year old's) conversation. Especially when said ‘cutter’ is scissor length away from hubby’s split ends and consequently, head. ( The irony of a cutter, cutting hair, was not lost on me.)

Our lovely fair headed child said loudly..”Ooooh, look at her arms! Poor girl!”

“Okay,” I shushed her quickly.”I know… that’s not something we should talk about.”

And should we? I explained, later on the way home that some people for some reason I don’t understand, feel like cutting their own skin and wounding themselves. It isn’t something that feels right to talk about or point out… But ( I told her) That lady should have talked to someone way before she decided she had to hurt herself.

Her truths are sad. I want to cuddle up her inner child and shush away the pain that caused such deep scars. Some are on the inside, but I’ll be damned if my sweet little lady should ever feel the need to explore those sorts of truths. The honesty of children had me considering polite social positions. The consequence of this was a conversation about how to censor her observations in order to make people feel okay about being themselves, in all their layers…. What is proper to discuss, and at what volume. At least I can cuddle my little woman and make sure I have a say in how she is comfortable. I am honoured to have the privilege to raise her, even if I muck it up a wee bit.

I am generally a little too honest. A little too loud. A little too proud. I would make an excellent gay man.

I’m here, I’m steer(-ing my own ship)
Get used to it.