Sea of Vapors II - Further Meandering

Reading over my half dozen or so paper-journal entries that centered around the question of lying, I’m left with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Lying as a coping mechanism, as a self-protective act, shouldn’t be necessary. My spirit’s desire is to never have to resort to lying, but that would require that I trust all comers to respond to honesty in an appropriate and healthful way.

If I’ve learned anything in my 38 years on planet earth, it’s that expectation is the root of all suffering, and expecting people to respond to the truth in a healthy way is, after all, an expectation. When can I expect a healthy response to honesty - that’s the final question I’m left with. And those people from whom I can expect a healthy response, well, they become tribe. Darklin is tribe. Heather is tribe. Sarah is tribe. To a lesser, though no less important degree, Jenna is tribe. Her husband, my Ex, is tribe by virtue of the fact that he has survived my honesty bombs, and returned to enjoying me (in a peripheral way, perhaps, but still) without feeling continually braced for the next bomb. Those who love me, I think, recognize my honesty bombs as well-intentioned. Those who’ve reacted poorly to them simple can’t handle the truth as I see it. My ex, John. My Auntie Irene, who doesn’t like hearing that I think her religion damages people. My father, who hangs up on me if I mention his drinking only to call back ten seconds later, pretending his cell phone his giving him trouble. There are some relationships which can’t handle the truth that I choose to continue to foster. My dad is non-negotiable. I love him. He is as flawed a chunk of humanity as they come, but he has apologized, begged for forgiveness, acknowledged his mistakes, and has earned my respect. He’s still a drunk. I have no illusions. He’s still a lot on the narcissistic side. But it does me good to talk to him, to hear the obvious love he has for me come through in his voice, to hear his pride. I can let go of my need for absolute honesty in that relationship because the pay off for doing so is enormous. Ok, I won’t insist that you talk about your alcoholism with me, if you’ll just call a few times a month and tell me you’re proud of me. Selfish, maybe, but there you have it.

I haven’t had an honest conversation with my mother or step-father in years. It’s not worth the risk, and I’m glad I no longer have to negotiate the murky waters of what’s appropriate and what’s not. My cousins and my daughter have given me reason to believe that she has regrets, that she is sorry, but the fact that she has never risked actually tell me has divorced me from empathy for her. I just can’t put myself in a position to hear one more erroneous judgment on my character. It hurts too much to be continually judged on the actions of a wounded child, an errant adolescent when I’m now 38. Does she want an apology from me, I wonder? Is that what it will take? I’m sorry for being broken by the brutality of your lover’s abuse? I’m sorry for being further broken by the misunderstanding and rough handling I endured at the hands of my step-father? I’m sorry my sister killed herself? (As though I am somehow responsible for that!) I’m sorry I was not the perfect child? I’m sorry I didn’t rise above all the horror I experienced to become a stellar human being despite all the odds against that possibility?

Except here’s what they don’t know: I did rise above all that to become a stellar human being. My nearest and dearest loved ones think so, and why wouldn’t they? I have maintained a loving spirit. I can trust (with much effort). I love my children. I have made brutally difficult choices for their care that, while they look like abandonment to those who don’t bother to hear my side of the story, were acts of sacrifice on my part, acts of self-awareness and love, and of accepting my own limitations. I’ve done most of my growing up on my own without any support at all from family, and I’m still here. Still here, able to find joy, able to love and be loved…

And I’m more than just ‘able’. There are areas where I excel. I’m more than just ‘okay’.

The lie I think my mother would have me tell is that she was in no way responsible for the damage done. I think if I could choke out a sentence or two about how she was blameless, I might make some inroads toward a relationship with her. If I said “I respect your choices. I believe you did the right things. I believe you always had my best interest at heart.” Maybe she’d ‘forgive’ me. I think my mother’s rejection of me has come about less because I have been a ‘bad person’ in her eyes (so many men! Children out of wedlock! A tumultuous and chaotic childhood! So violently tempered! So disobedient! Such a little liar!) and more because I can’t tell the crucial lie: You were a good mother.

She was a lousy mother. I have also been a lousy mother, so I get how deeply painful a fact that is to wrap your head around. I get how the accusation of ‘bad mother’ hurts in the deepest parts of a woman - but it’s the truth as I know it.

There are some lies I’ll never tell.