Honesty is Pandora's Box

I have a fast mind. It's a maze, and it's complex, but I figure things out relatively quickly. So from a very young age, I loved to lie as lying was just figuring out what people expected you to say, and saying it convincingly, most times before they even said anything. It wasn't getting away with things that made it such an unshakable bad habit, rather it was the thought that my words could change realities, my words could change perceptions, and it didn't have to be what was right or what was true. I was power tripping as a kid, and thus became known as a liar. 


Over time, my lies became manipulation. I would toy with my peer's lives and minds, the puppeteer feeling going to my head. I convinced a girl to break up with her boyfriend as they "weren't compatible". I convinced a guy that his best friend was "scheming behind his back". I even got a girl to completely drop my potential love interest, in hopes of getting with this guy I'd purposefully befriended for that very reason. By peppering the truth with a couple stretches, a few white lies, the world could be what I made it. And then I got played and lied to. Learned that lesson painfully. 


I learned that those traits were nothing to be proud of; liars are a dime a dozen and not all of them are any good. Girls who told the truth, girls who were honest despite any trepidation and fear, courageous girls, were valuable, or at least should be. I learned that being lied to hurt everything in a person. If they knew about it, it would change not only their perception of you, but of anyone following you. If they didn't know, it would jade the relationships and interactions of their future in ways you couldn't begin to grasp. And that made me stop being a liar, almost cold turkey.


The issue with that is, honesty is Pandora's box. People are constantly asking me to be honest with them. I'm a closed person who likes to think things through before I say them, mull over the ramifications and the benefits and then make a wise decision. The truth, just like biker shorts, ain't for everybody. 


My mother always said never ask for more than you can handle, and never ask questions you don't want the answers to. And she's been right on that just don't tell her I said it as people often ask for my brand of honesty and are shocked by what they hear. I'm muted in life...okay not muted but composed. I don't get riled up easily, and it takes a lot to shock me. I'm really observant and draw connections like there were dots between them leading the way. That right there is a recipe for disaster as some people's dots aren't really meant to be connected by outside forces but by themselves.


Me and W are yo-yoing continuously because of my formerly lackadaisical view of honesty as it pertains to my feelings. To make her feel more at ease, more secure with my friendship, I'd developed this veneer of not having deep feelings. Surface wise, it always seems like jealousy, bitterness or competition between us on my end, but under my still waters lies insecurity, uncertainty and a fear of not having anyone in my corner. Now that I'm evolving, that veneer is being painfully peeled back, exposing raw nerves to cold air.


 She's not really used to me telling her when she's hurt my feelings; she knew formerly as I would be really curt and sniping in my responses to her. Now I can recognize what's going on with me, and I'm not afraid of asking to take time out to figure it out. Now, I tell her sincerely what I feel with very little filter. She's kind of in a tough place in her life, trying to figure hers out just like I'm trying to figure mine, but she wants me to depend on her as I've always done not realizing that the actions she's taking now make it real difficult. I need something stable. I need something consistent. She can't give that right now. Telling her I don't feel safe , secure, or as trusting of her as I used to hurts her. It hurts me too. But it was something that needed to be said. 


And therein lies the rub with this honesty thing. It hurts both ways and nobody seems to recognize that. The person being honest feels, in most cases, sorely aware they are hurting someone they care about and exposing themselves to possible retribution, ridicule or rejection. The person receiving the honesty can misconstrue it as a critique, an insult and sometimes a purposeful aim to hurt them. 


Pandora didn't realize the ills she let into the world, and by the time she closed the lid, it was too late. You can't un-say things, or lie to cover up your honesty on some "JK" type thing. But...the great thing about that box is that it frees us of all those things we held inside, freeing us to be more ourselves and less our short-comings, hang-ups and pent up emotions. It frees us to live more sincerely, more nobly, and in a world full of liars, half-truthers, and people walking around with the baggage of being lied to, that is a hopeful thing. With every honest step we take forward, we're walking into a more hopeful and genuine future. 

My Keys...

I am that friend. You have one similar, or you might be that friend. The one with the intune advice, the one who doesn't look like they're listening but shock you by repeating what you've said, verbatim, and giving a solution in no time. That's me. And it weirds me out considering I always get asked about love and managing relationships.

I am single, as I'm sure you might've picked up on, but I get tasked with sorting through relationship drama and skirmishes like I'm paid to do so. My idealistic view of love, but my realistic view point of life puts me in this weird place where I don't know what I'm talking about, but I feel what I'm talking about. I don't like to say I know something when I don't (because then if I'm put on the spot and am wrong I get embarrassed) so I'm not going to say to my friends "Who's got two thumbs and is excellent at relationships? This girl!" But that never stops them from asking me how to show someone love, or rather, sort through that love.

I would guess that because they know my methodical approach to life, as well as my genuine want to be a good person, a demonstrative person, they'll ask my advice for things. For instance, I was on the phone with my homeboy about his girlfriend for nearly two hours the other day; they're having miscommunications and misunderstandings left and right - their slight age difference is making him feel shaky. I responded that they should have an open dialouge, a sit-down where no judgement is passed and they just say what they need to say to one another. I also let him know no woman, no person, can make or break him unless he lets them; if they were to break up, his heart will go on.

W puts me in the same place, sometimes admitting to channeling my mannerisms and ways while in her relationships which...weird, right? I feel like my copyrighted self has been infringed upon by that, especially when she gets to reap the benefits of being "me" while being her. I digress. For the most part I don't mind, but there's this fretful little seed in me that's sprouting with my position.

Let me be honest here; I don't really like being the logical one, the one with all the patience and all the time but none of the experience. I feel like it's not my place to give advice as I have no credentials to fall back on. If I had a laundry list of successful relationships and a ring on my finger, sure, ask away. The fact remains, it's just me though; just this small girl with a big heart and without a pair of hands to put it in.

I feel good for helping them, legitly, but at the same time I keep thinking "I would totally have this handled/This wouldn't be an issue with me." It's egotistical, but it makes that small, fretting seed in me feel better until I realize it's not the right kind of "better." I shouldn't say "if it were me" because...well, I don't really know what I'd be like. I can muse and posture on it all day, but the fact remains that I've never had to really do those sorts of things, compromise, talk it out, etc. with another person before.

The romantic in me is listless and waiting for a chance to prove itself. The nurturer in me is still content with just helping others. The me under it all is just tired of being the good angel on people's shoulders. The me under it all is over being everyone's super woman, and still walking away with empty hands and a wrinkled cape.

I asked myself a few days ago why I bother, asked myself 'What are you looking for Tes?' What is keeping this candle lit dispite a very short wick? I got my answer in a dream. In it, I was myself, not my dream self of model proportions, and I was in a place that was beautiful and peaceful. And there was a guy who was digging me for just being me, and we were comfortably together. Violins, cellos, the works ensued, and I felt beautiful with every cell in my little dream body. And I woke up feeling beautiful, and I went to work and had customers yell at me still feeling beautiful, and I still, after waking and walking for hours, feel as beautiful as I did in that dream.

And there is the answer, the thing I didn't know I was looking for but kept frantically searching for in the arms of other people, in the approval of other people. I want to feel beautiful, all the time. I want to be comfortable in my own skin with people, and trust them. I want to find love at my own pace and not feel so put upon to do so by my own zany perceptions of what people my age are doing. I was once told when you stop looking for your keys, you find all the other things you need to find first, and then, your keys.

So yes, I am that friend. The single, pretty one. The one who everyone thinks has all the answers. I'm also the friend who's lost her keys and has finally stopped looking for them. And it's feeling better and better every day.

<3

A Letter to a Heartbreak

You are the reason I don't think I'm beautiful. Okay, that was melodramatic. You are the reason I refuse to see beauty in myself.

Before you, I was confident. I was secure. I was that small firecracker with the big boom and glow at the end; small in stature, big in impact. I was outgoing, and sweet and never afraid to be myself. I knew that anything I ever did, I could put my full heart into it because I was a great person; nobody would intentionally hurt me.

And then you broke my heart. I knew someone would have to be the first, but I was expecting someone who wasn't you, my friend. I was expecting some thuggin it and lovin it type dude who I'd fall for stupidly to ruin my little engine that could, not you. You, with your clean cut exterior and gentlemanly ways. I suppose it had to be someone like you, as I don't think I'd have fallen for someone else.

I don't want you to think it's all about you, because it really isn't. You were a catalyst. I had to learn, woefully the hard way, that I couldn't trust everyone, but in learning that lesson I thought that I could no longer trust myself. If I could let myself fall in love with you, through all those red, albeit delayed, flags, I wasn't to be trusted because oh, that heartbreak my brotha...

That heartbreak had me behind a gazebo, in the snow, bawling my eyes out before class. That heartbreak had me second guessing every move I made from then on. That heartbreak had me believing, has me believing that something is wrong with me; that maybe if I were prettier, smarter, faster, better I wouldn't have fallen for it, and I wouldn't have gotten hurt. That heartbreak makes it so hard to just talk to dudes I'm interested in without worrying that they'll f*ck me over in the end.


So in a way, you ruined me. But at the same time, I still pity you. You can't find love either; you're so self-sabotaging that even I, with all the love I know I have to give, couldn't break your obvious self-loathing. All I wanted was for you to let yourself go, let yourself feel free enough to fall in love with me, and even though you could see it, you could feel it and hear it in my every word, you still couldn't believe that you deserved any of it. And a retrograde effect of that was me not believing that I was worth your love.

I know better now, I feel better now, but I'm not that confident girl anymore. No, I'm a bit jaded and so gun-shy. I have a fear of bothering the dudes I try to talk to; I fear that if I get on their nerves with all my curiosity, my wanting to know them, they'll pull a you and put a stop to it, or worse yet, run. I have had to learn myself all over again. I've had to start trusting myself from the very beginning. I forgave you almost instantly. It took me almost two years to forgive myself.

I don't hate you. I'm no longer mad at you. I'm no longer mad at myself. I just wish you could've been better about it; wish you could've broken my heart like a man instead of a boy. A man wouldn't have let it get so far and thus I wouldn't be so distrusting of others. A man would've looked me in the eyes, so I wouldn't be so sure that when men talk to me, compliment me, they must be lying. A man would've. You didn't. That's my only regret about loving you.

Is it hard? Terribly. Will it always be? I know it won't.

I know I am beautiful. I know I am smart. I know all men are not like you. I know that somebody is going to love me better than you ever could. So the hard part is over; now all I have to do is convince myself, will myself to believe it.

A Letter to a Friend

I'm sorry.

I rarely ever say that, but feel the need to start off with that. I think the last thing I said to you a few months back when we last talked was to grow up...and then I hung up. That was childish, and wrong. I was frustrated and upset with not only you but with my whole life and just took it out on you. I was supposed to be there for you, like you'd been there for me so many times when I thought the world was against me and where was I? Wrapped up in my own world.

You were frustrated. You felt stagnate. I'd just been to that place and instead of coming at you in empathy, I got annoyed with you. You, who had so much to give in life, so much direction, felt stuck? Why? What for when you had the world in the palm of your hands?

I remember work that day was crazy. I'd gotten in trouble for some minor sh*t, this dude I was digging blew me off, and then here you go...not recognizing your potential and sh*t...

I haven't heard from you since, but I know you're well. I guess this letter is more for me than for you; it's me learning to let not only you go, but that guilt that I carry with me for not being the friend I should've been to you.

It's funny, but with every friend I get now, the males anyway, I search for your characteristics. I want to learn them to see if they walk like you, or talk like you, if they see me the way you do, so clearly and easily despite all the opaque glass I have up around my true self. Nobody's come close. I don't think anyone ever will.

I love you. I miss you. And if I see you one day in the street, I'm kicking your ass on sight for not calling me.

Love.