Day 78 of 100

“I was never much of a liar.”

When I was little I lied about everything. Everything.

Once my dad found me elbow deep in the actual cookie jar. “What are you doing?” He asked.

“Nothing,” I replied, “just checking to see if there are still cookies in the jar,”

Another time I was stealing money out of my mom’s wallet because she refused to give me any. As I was in the middle of my dastardly theft, my dad walked into the living room.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“Nothing,” I replied, “just putting money back into Mom’s wallet.”

When we are small we build defense mechanisms to protect ourselves, and for me lying was armor, and as I grew older the armor became less effective.

When I got sober the first time I created two rules for myself. 1) I would always do the right thing even if it was to my detriment, and 2) I would always tell the truth no matter what.

Maybe not surprisingly I overdid the truth. Rather than coupling the truth with empathy, I delivered it with brutality. It was never done with kindness, it wasn’t that I was mean, it was that I was unpracticed.

But over time I got better at telling the truth. I’ve learned that delivering it with kindness goes much further than the brutal truth, and it was way more effective.

But I still lie. Almost entirely to myself. I tell myself things that I know are not truthful, but much like when I was 5, I assume I will believe myself.

Like I said, I am not very good at lying.