Honesty

Real Talk

I’m an honest person.  I don’t really have anything to hide.  I say what I mean and people don’t generally question my intentions.  They may, from time to time, think I’m a bitch because my thought to word conversion isn’t really a conversion…It’s more cognitive vomit.   But I never mean harm.  If I tell a patient at work “ignoring a broken finger is a terrible treatment plan.”  It’s because I don’t want that finger to become gangrenous and fall off.  If I tell Radley that he needs to brush his teeth or else he’s going to be the smelly kid, it’s because I want to save him from some of the emotional scarring that inevitably transpires during adolescence.  If I tell a girlfriend that her man is a worthless leach, it’s because I don’t want her to suffer any unnecessary heartache.    And if anybody understands unnecessary heartache, it’s this girl. Point being that my honesty is well intended.  It’s how I show compassion.  Backwards and twisted?  Perhaps.  But, most of us were raised to believe that honesty is virtue and it’s a good virtue to possess and maintain.

Or is it?

Open Book

That’s what I call myself.  The proverbial “open book.”  Because I have no secrets.  I have no reason to lie.  I’m not covering anything.  Or at least that’s what I thought when I decided to share my experiences with others in this obscure chronicle.  But then I realized that I was starting to hold back.  I was spending more hours thinking about what was appropriate to say than I was spending writing what I had to say.  After I had committed to being honest about my emotions, to sharing my experiences, regardless of whether anyone else found value in it, I had begun to question the significance of sharing my feelings.  Or maybe more appropriately, I have started to question the response other’s would have to what I say.   I didn’t want to appear angry or pathetic or hurtful.  So, I started thinking more about what I was saying.  Then, it became harder to write.  Suddenly, I couldn’t even justify my thoughts and emotions to myself.  So, I stopped writing.  And I dismissed myself as having lost the realism and the humor that accompanies it.  Then I had to overcompensate for not being funny.  I told myself “life isn’t always funny.  You don’t always have to make a joke.”  But that’s not the truth.  The truth is that I write like I speak:  no thought to word conversion.  It just comes out.  And if I can’t just let it out, then I have nothing.  Except lies and fallacies.  And that’s not really what I do.  What I do is talk about it.  All of it.  All the time. 

Inner Peas

That’s how I find my inner peas.   I talk.  I have real talk.  I talk loud.  I talk a lot.  I TALK.  So, if I can’t talk, I feel stifled.  The other night my hippie sister and I sat at the table, indulging in yet another decadent pizza and wine, and I told her “I just don’t think I can be completely honest anymore.”  And she spit her pizza on the table and looked at me like I was from a different planet.  Finally, with a straight face, and pizza all over the table, she said “There’s enough bullshit.  Just be honest again. That’s what you do. ”  And she’s right.  Because I can’t ever feel comfortable unless I say what needs to be said.  And for me what needs to be said often comes in the form of a painfully, awkward monologue that most people wish they could erase from their memories.  It’s just talk though.  And I talk about it all.  I talk about life and love and the road less traveled.   Then when I talk, I find that the road less traveled is actually a gridlocked freeway of the emotionally indignant.  Then I talk about child rearing and (mis)adventures in parenting.  Then I talk some more.  I talk about bad days and good days.  I talk about the people who have enhanced my life and the people I wish never darkened my doorway. I talk about bad sex, and infrequently, about good sex.  Sometimes I talk about the two years I waited for some douche bag to come around so I didn’t have sex at all.  He may or may not be coming around.  As always.  I talk about everything. Sometimes,  I complain when I talk because it always makes me remember how fortunate I am.  I talk about being fortunate because I know that I am.  I talk about my shortcomings because we all have them and remembering that they are a part of us makes dealing with them easier.  I talk about the women who get me through every day.  I talk about the grass and the table because I need to remember what home means.  I talk about the cute boy with a big heart because it gives me hope for humanity.  I talk.  It’s my inner peas.