Honesty is bracing

Honesty is like sitting on a deck chair by the pool for hours in late July, reading and soaking in the rays.  as You walk over to the pool, and the soles of your feet burn on the hot concrete   You feel the grit in the sidewalk dig pleasantly into your skin, and you twist your heel with each step to grind away the caluses. You lazily dive into the deep end of the pool, but the water is ice cold, colder than you ever would have imagined.  It's memorial day cold, not labor day cool, like you expected.  That's how honesty can be.

I don't mean the, "You have one dark blue and one black sock," kind of honesty.  I mean the kind of general honesty of conversation that most people avoid.  Being honest is almost a lost art, poetic.  I have some friends that practice it.  Oddly enough I usually see it used by couples, like speaking a second language, one keeps fresh by conversing daily.   Do both people speak honesty from the start, is that why they are drawn together, or does it rub off of one person on the other, like repeated slang that's assimilated into a partners lexicon over time?

Sometimes you like the cold; it's purely refreshing.  Like when someone tells the truth about doing something the less than perfect way, like the way you do it, only you don't admit it because you don't want judgemental people talking about you for being lazy.  And you won't talk about your friend because, hey, you were thinking that you do the same thing, You laugh at your honest friends because they're funny.  That's why comedians are so amusing; they know how to find the truth that we don't want to admit.  They bring the truth out in the open and talk about themselves or others, making it safe to laugh at ourselves even when we are too afraid to admit to the same thing in another setting, too afraid of what others think about us to speak honestly. Kids are funny in this way, too. Of course their views of the world are kind of mixed-up sometimes, which is also funny.  What's not funny, is when they embarass you around people who are not your friends, which leads us to the next kind of honesty.

At other times the truth is bracing in an uncomfortable way, either because it points out something that you didn't want to know about yourself, or brings to light something you knew about yourself, but didn't want to admit.  Make an excuse for not attending the a birthday party; good friend calls your bluff by saying that we all have things to do and if you really valued your relationship with the birthday boy/girl, you could make it a priority to attend and rearrange your schedule so that you could make it.  You're left to either concede or defend your position.  Individuals bringing this kind of truth are not always considered friendly.  Conversely, individuals bringing this kind of truth are sometimes just what you need.  It depends entirely on how close the person is to you, how much love s/he shows you.  The closer, the more love, the more justified.

Next time you are in a conversation and find yourself about to tell a little white lie because you're afraid to look bad, dive in and tell the truth...the water's fine.

One small step for Samone...

I think that journaling is extremely important because it:

• is a snapshot of today, how I'm feeling, what I'm doing and thinking
• will provide some insite to my thinking pattern for myself, and my loved ones, especially my children (dare I say grandchildren) who may want to know anything about me when I'm old and not much into talking, or dead
• will help me remember what daily life was like with these mongrels that I call children
• will help me with the journaling my scrapbook pages, should I ever find time to create any.

However, I don't ever take the time to journal.  I walk through life drafting a journal all day long, narrating to myself in my head as though I am writing in the pages of some novel.  I think it's because I aim to write.  I don't have time to write because I'm raising 3 children and working full time, but I fully plan on doing so as soon as the kids don't suck up all of my time. 

Don't get me wrong, caring for them is a labor of love, like nursing.  It's something that is a challenge, but worth doing, so I refuse to wish it away.  I know that these days with my girls are very important and that I will miss them when they're gone.  This early time with them is formative and will perhaps be the most significant in their lives. 

I also know that if I don't force myself to journal, then I'll never do it.  I guess I have to strike a balance between living life and capturing it for memory. I'll end this blog like I end all new journals, with doubt and the hope that this will be the turning point, that I will continue to write on a consistent, if not daily basis.